REGAN, Pamela C. 1966-

PERSONAL: Born March 3, 1966, in Santa Monica, CA; daughter of James and Deborah S. Regan. Ethnicity: "American." Education: Williams College, B.A., 1988; University of Minnesota, Ph.D., 1994. Hobbies and other interests: Dog obedience and agility, equestrian sports, reading, jogging, scuba diving.

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of Psychology, California State University, Los Angeles, 5151 State University Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90032-8227. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: California State University, Los Angeles, professor of psychology, 1996—.

MEMBER: International Association for Relationship Research.

WRITINGS:

(With Ellen Berscheid) Lust: What We Know about Human Sexual Desire, Sage Publications (Thousand Oaks, CA), 1999.

The Mating Game: A Primer on Love, Sex, and Marriage, Sage Publications (Thousand Oaks, CA), 2003.

(With Ellen Berscheid) The Psychology of Interpersonal Relationships, Prentice-Hall (Tappan, NJ), 2004.

Contributor of articles and reviews to periodicals, including Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Journal of Psychology and Human Sexuality, Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, Social Behavior and Personality, and Personal Relationships.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Research on "sex differences in human mating dynamics, mate preferences, lust and sexual attraction, passionate love and romantic attraction, hormonal influences on sexuality, companionate love, and the human/companion animal relationship."

SIDELIGHTS: Pamela C. Regan told CA: "I am an English major who wandered into a psychology class one day … and stayed. Although literature and literary criticism remain my true loves, I have found that my work as a research psychologist has enabled me to meet both my need for creative self-expression through writing (which for me is a highly solitary and sometimes painful endeavor) and my desire for friendly and intellectually stimulating collaborative relationships. Most importantly, I have been able to explore from a scientific perspective the topics I continue to enjoy reading about in English literature—love, desire, passion, and mate selection.

"I write scholarly books directed mostly toward other researchers and students, although the subject matter is certainly of interest to just about everyone. The topics I study have long been dear to my heart; I grew up reading Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, George Eliot, and the British playwrights and poets of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I continued to study the works of these authors in college (and couldn't believe that I actually got credit for reading and writing—things I did for pleasure anyway). When, on somewhat of a whim, I decided to pursue a doctorate in psychology, I had the great good fortune to have as my faculty mentor Dr. Ellen Berscheid. Ellen's love of literature was as deep as my own, and she happened to study the very things that were the focus of many of the books I read. Serendipity. I became a scientist, and although my perspective is more empirical than literary these days, I still (joyfully) spend my time thinking and writing and wondering about love and lust."