Dr. David R. Heise was born on March 15, 1937 in Evanston, IL. In 1958, he received his two bachelor’s degrees in journalism and mathematics. After working in the Laboratory for Applied Sciences at the University of Chicago, he received his master’s and doctoral degrees in 1962 and 1964 from the University of Chicago. From there, he worked at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Queens College of the City University of New York, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and finally the University of Indiana-Bloomington for 40 years until his passing on September 28, 2021.
In his last years, he was a Rudy Professor Emeritus at Indiana University’s Department of Sociology. He was well-known for developing the first equation for minimizing deflection at the University of North Carolina in 1971, launched the first version of Interact in 1972, and wrote the first book on the subject (Understanding Events: Affect and the Construction of Social Action) in 1979.
As of early 2020, the body of literature in this area comprised 8 books and hundreds of peer-reviewed articles from over 40 scholars with dictionaries in 8 countries.