Norman B. Anderson

Anderson was born on October 16, 1955, in Greensboro, North Carolina, to Rev. Dr. Charles W. and Rev. Dr. Lois J. Anderson. After graduating from North Carolina Central University in Durham, N.C., Anderson earned master's and doctoral degrees in clinical psychology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He received additional clinical and research training at the schools of medicine at Brown and Duke Universities, including postdoctoral fellowships in psychophysiology and aging at Duke. Anderson also received training in Mindfulness Facilitation from the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, University of California at Los Angeles. In addition, Anderson was trained as a Certified Executive and Professional Coach through the College of Executive Coaching.

In 1998, Anderson was elected president of the Society of Behavioral Medicine, becoming the first African-American to hold the position. He was the founding associate director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where he was in charge of social and behavioral science, and was the first director of the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR). While at NIH, Anderson facilitated behavioral and social sciences research across all of its Institutes and Centers. Research in the behavioral and social research was under his purview in areas such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, children's health, mental health, minority health, aging, and oral health.

Anderson was also a tenured associate professor of medical psychology and of psychology at Duke University and as a professor of health and social behavior at the Harvard School of Public Health.

In 2012, he was elected to the Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine), which is part of the National Academy of Sciences.

Anderson published dozens of scientific articles and authored and edited several books. He was editor-in-chief of the two-volume Encyclopedia of Health and Behavior (2003) and co-editor of Interdisciplinary research: Case studies from health and social science (2008). For over 12 years he was editor-in-chief of American Psychologist, the APA's flagship journal.

With his wife, P Elizabeth Anderson, he wrote a health book for the general public, Emotional Longevity: What Really Determines How Long You Live, which was released in 2003.

Anderson retired from the APA in July 2015, following an APA authorized independent review report relating to ethics guidelines conducted by former assistant U.S. Attorney David H. Hoffman. Prior to the report's release, Anderson had informed the board that he would be retiring at the end of 2016.