AUSTIN, Texas –Dr. Judith Langlois, a University of Texas at Austin psychology professor who has attracted national attention with her research on questions of how attractiveness is perceived, has been named dean ad interim of the College of Liberal Arts.
The appointment was announced by Provost Ad Interim Stephen Monti and is effective Nov. l.
Langlois, who holds the Charles and Sarah Seay Regents Professorship and is a past associate dean of liberal arts, has conducted groundbreaking research showing that even infants have a sense of what’s attractive. In the late 1980s, she began placing three-and six-month old babies in front of a screen and showing them pairs of facial photographs. Each pair included one considered attractive by adult judges and one considered unattractive. Langlois found that infants gazed significantly longer at “attractive” white female faces than at “unattractive” ones.
Since then, she has repeated the tests using white male faces, black females faces and faces of other babies, with the same results.
“I am delighted that Dr. Langlois has agreed to serve as dean ad interim,” said Monti. “She commands respect not only as an exceptional scholar, but also as a highly competent administrator, having served both the University and the College of Liberal Arts well.”
