by Tricia Duke '19

Ten years ago, Mike Prentice '08 conducted Honors research under the advisorship of Professor of Psychology Tim Kasser. Maintaining a collaborative relationship throughout Prentice's graduate education and postdoctoral studies, Prentice and Kasser have co-authored and now published a paper based on Prentice's original Knox research.

The article, "Openness to experience predicts intrinsic value shifts after deliberating one's own death," was published in the psychology journal Death Studies.

Prentice majored in philosophy and psychology at Knox, interests that shaped his early studies and that influence his professional research to this day.

"In my first couple trimesters at Knox, I had taken courses in personality psychology and ethics in the philosophy department," Prentice said. "As far as thinking about how to combine those ideas into research projects, that primarily came out of my advisorship from Tim Kasser."

Prentice said that early in his first year, Kasser invited Prentice to participate in research at Kasser's lab. After developing a taste for the process, Prentice was accepted into the McNair Scholars Program, which he said provided both funding and a supportive community for his research.

Kasser said that Prentice's McNair and Honors projects "both concerned the ways in which thinking about death can actually make life meaningful, rather than detract from meaning. That, obviously, is a question that philosophers and religious scholars have grappled with for a long time."

Associate Professor and Chair of Philosophy Dan Wack, who co-advised Prentice on his Honors project, agreed that Prentice's dedication to integrating both his chosen disciplines was evident in the classroom.

"He was really interested in taking a thought and following it, seeing where it would go and what he could do with it," Wack said.

Prentice said that he appreciates all the opportunities for research he had at Knox.

"Undergrad is the dream time. You're given so much opportunity to read and figure out what your interests are and what the big questions are," Prentice said. "I find that I'm still inspired by the same questions. You also find different ways to look at those questions. Things keep unfolding."

After graduating from Knox, Prentice earned his M.A. at York University and his Ph.D. in social and personality psychology from the University of Missouri. In the 2012-2013 academic year, Prentice returned to Knox as a faculty member. He now works as a postdoctoral research associate at Wake Forest University.

Prentice remembered his second time at Knox, this time as a professor.

"When I worked at Knox, that was about the time when I really needed to start thinking about my dissertation, and we [he and Kasser] bounced ideas together about that, too," Prentice said.

"We'd get together and talk when he came to town, and obviously we talked a lot while he was here teaching," Kasser said. Kasser said that he and Prentice are collaborating on two more papers now, one of which is based on Prentice's dissertation.

"All my independent research projects at Knox were advised by Tim," Prentice said. "Working together so long has helped me become a good researcher."