Jim Blascovich is a Professor of Psychology at UC Santa Barbara, where he directs the Research Center for Virtual Environments and Behavior. Jim earned his B.S. in psychology at Loyola University of Chicago (1968) and Ph.D. in social psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno (1972). He held academic positions at the University of Nevada, Reno (72-73), Marquette University (73-80), and SUNY at Buffalo (80-95) before coming to UCSB.  Jim is a past President of both the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc (Div. 8 of APA), and the Society of Experimental Social Psychology.

He is a Member of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, a Charter Fellow of the American Psychological Society, and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. He was a recipient of the Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize in 2007. He was a awarded the Inaugural Australasian Social Psychology Society/Society of Personality and Social Psychology Teaching Fellowship (2002), and Erskine Fellowship (2005) at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. He has served on several National Research Council panels and numerous editorial boards. His research has been continuously funded by the National Science Foundation for more than 20 years and has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Army Research Laboratory, and other agencies.