Matthew H. Olson, PhD

About Matt:

Matthew H. Olson, PhD, taught in the Psychology Department at Hamline University, in St. Paul, MN from September 1977 until August 2018. He's also a really good husband (45 years in 2020 October), a dad, a serious guitar player, a Certified Spinning© Instructor (card expired!), and a professional pirate.

Matt was born in Cuba, New Mexico and grew up in the deserts and mountains of the Southwest. When Matt was 13, his parents uprooted and moved to Waukesha, Wisconsin, a vortex of sodden, gray, depressive days. After surviving high school, he tried a year at University of Wisconsin–Madison, but he went out on strike before the end of November and lost the nominal scholarship that might have kept him there. After dropping out and failing as a guitar player in  San Francisco in the early 1970s, he completed his undergraduate degree at the University of California at Davis in 1973. Although intending to apply for a graduate program in Social Psychology, Matt erroneously applied and was accepted to the Experimental Psychology PhD Program at the University of Michigan, from which he graduated in 1977. While completing his PhD, he accepted a one-year, temporary appointment to the faculty at Hamline University.

Matt currently lives with his wife, artist Marce Soderman and two cats  named Carles Puyol and El Coco. All four are living happily together, sheltering in the Sangre de Cristo foothills at the eastern edge of Santa Fe.