“WISDOM and experience” in experimental psychology have been lost from the John Radcliffe Hospital following the sudden death of a university academic.

Head of experimental psychology at the University of Oxford Professor Glyn Humphreys passed away, aged 61, on January 14.

Dr Humphreys was a professor of experimental psychology and head of the department of experimental psychology at the University of Oxford during his life. He was also a fellow of Wolfson College.

Dr Humphreys was said to bring “wisdom and experience to both experimental psychology and the John Radcliffe Hospital” and last year received the British Psychological Society Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his contributions to his field. Friends and colleagues said they had lost a “wonderful friend, a caring mentor and a brilliant scientist”.

Glyn Humphreys was born in 1954 and studied at Bristol University in the late 1970s, where he gained a BA in 1976 and a PhD in 1980.

He was also a professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Birmingham, where he held an Honorary Professorship.

Professor Humphreys was the Watts Professor of Experimental Psychology, head of the psychology department and principal investigator for the CNN Lab at Oxford University.

Internationally, he was honoured as a special professor at the University of Leipzig and the University of Peking, and at the National Academy of Sciences in China.

He also edited the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Visual Cognition and the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.

He was a former president of the Experimental Psychology Society and then president of the British Neuropsychology Society.

He lived with his wife and colleague Jane Riddoch in Oxford.

His colleagues described him as someone who was “always available, always generous, always thoughtful and never pretentious”.

Professor Alastair Buchan, head of the medical sciences division, said of his colleague’s death: “I speak for the whole division when I say we are all affected by this extremely sad news.

“Glyn was so young and so full of life and vitality. Together with his wife and colleague Jane Riddoch they brought both wisdom and experience to both experimental psychology and the John Radcliffe Hospital. He is going to be terribly missed.

WOur thoughts are with his wife Jane and their family.”

Professor Humphreys died suddenly on January 14 while in Hong Kong as a visiting professor.

A memorial event for him will be held at Wolfson College on Saturday, May 28.