JD
I would like to thank all of my graduate students who have conducted the boredom research in the lab over the past decade—Yael Goldberg, Julia Isacescu, Colleen Merrifield, Jhotisha Mugon, and Andriy Struk. More than just foot soldiers in this endeavor, you have all shaped my thinking in important ways. There has been an army of undergraduates who also contributed, but I’ll reserve special mention for Ava-Ann Allman—our paper in 2005 kicked it off for the lab. I would like to thank my colleagues, who also shape the work and should be credited for the best ideas and immune to the most egregious errors—Abby Scholer, Ian McGregor, and Dan Smilek. A special thanks to Colin Ellard for advice and insight on this whole book writing thingy. I would like to thank our editor Janice Audet and everyone at Harvard University Press for guiding us so expertly through this process. Finally, I would like to thank my family for supporting many late nights stuck at my computer, for putting up with me when bored, and for generally helping keep that to a minimum. As always, Stacey can’t be thanked enough for holding it all together.
JDE
Thanks to the keen graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who have explored boredom with me—Veerpal Bambrah, Carol Cavaliere, Shelley Fahlman, Alexandra Frischen, Cory Gerritsen, Dana Gorelik, Andrew Hunter, Jennifer Hunter, Chia-Fen Hsu, Sanaz Mehranvar, Kimberley Mercer-Lynn, Andy Ng, and Rotem Petranker. In particular, Shelley, who set the foundation for the boredom lab, and Alexandra, who boosted our momentum, deserve special acknowledgment. Special thanks also goes to Jennifer and Andrew, who provided feedback on early drafts of some of this book. Colleagues Mark Fenske, Peter Gaskovski, Ian McGregor, Ian Newby-Clark, and Dan Smilek have played a formative role in my professional life. Dan and Mark significantly shaped my thinking about boredom in particular and must be recognized for their immeasurable contribution, yet not faulted for any of my own missteps. Special thanks also go to Maggie Toplak, who provided invaluable moral support as we both wrestled with our respective writing projects over the last couple of years. Collaboration and dialogue are central to what keeps me engaged in the research enterprise, and I am very thankful to each and every one of you. Janice Audet, our editor, and everyone else at Harvard University Press provided just the right amount of freedom and direction to keep us on track. I am thankful for their guidance during the writing process. Finally, and most importantly, I thank Adrienne for indulging and supporting me as I pursued this project. Words can’t express how grateful I am to have you by my side.