A tribute written by Jill Novacek, PhD
Dr. Robert Raskin was raised in the New York City area. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from UC Santa Cruz and his Doctorate from UC Berkeley where he was a member of the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research (IPAR). He conducted behavioral sciences research for 20 years before focusing full-time on his art. Dr. Raskin was a pioneer in the study of narcissism. He developed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory with Calvin Hall in 1979. The NPI is the most widely utilized personality measure of narcissism. During his scientific career Dr. Raskin created and tested objective methods for evaluating the performance of healthcare, social service, education, and criminal justice programs. He has numerous publications in scientific peer-reviewed journals.
After graduate school, Dr. Raskin was Director of Tulsa Institute of Behavioral Sciences for 14 years where he and I conducted applied community research specializing in program evaluation and performance monitoring that focused on homelessness, substance abuse, mental health and criminal justice systems, and alternative education. He worked with Dr. Robert Hogan publishing articles on narcissistic self-esteem management and the dark side of charisma. He was also a Senior Research Scientist with ETR Associates and later an independent consultant and evaluator in Seattle.
We relocated to South Florida in 2008 where “Bobby” focused his career on pursuing his love of creating artwork, and he built a successful commercial art business, Art By BobbyR. His bold, bright and colorful images imprinted on souvenirs are sold onboard 150 cruise ships, and he created industrial paintings that brand the offices of numerous maritime and energy businesses. He also was a stone sculptor who carved hundreds of statues and reliefs depicting faces and the human body.
Bobby Raskin was a passionate adventure traveler, and he and I traveled the world photographing Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Zambia, Namibia, Botswana, India, Iceland, Norway, and the Alps to name a few. He was an avid tennis player and swimmer, and he volunteered his time creating a signature program for Seafarers’ House at Port Everglades. He was kind, insightful, creative, curious, smart, articulate and bold. He was my fantastic husband and soulmate of 33 years. I am truly grateful to have met Robert Raskin at the UCB Psychology graduate student picnic on the first day of classes back in the late 80’s. He is survived by me his wife Jill Novacek and by his daughter Julie.
