Robert L. Thompson, professor emeritus of psychology at Hunter College and the graduate program of the City University of New York, and longtime leader of the Red Onion Jazz Band, died peacefully on Jan. 13 at St. Luke’s Hospital after suffering a collapse.

Born Dec. 6, 1926, in New York city, he received his doctorate in experimental psychology from Columbia University in 1959, and began teaching at Columbia in 1957. He became associate professor at Hunter College in 1964, establishing the biopsychology program there and heading it for many years during his long and distinguished academic career. Since his retirement in the early 1990s he has spent about half his time at his home on the Vineyard.

Bob Thompson was an accomplished jazz musician, playing drums with what the Journal Allegro called “some of the greatest jazz performers of the 20th century.” He led the Red Onion Jazz Band, a New Orleans-style jazz band founded in the early 1950s, for over 50 years. For almost two decades until 2006 the band was featured on Saturday nights at the Chelsea restaurant The Cajun. The band also recorded several albums, played a number of concerts, and performed at other venues. On numerous occasions, Bob played with the Flying Elbows on the Vineyard.

He was the son of William George and Erna Remeschatis Thompson. He attended the Bronx High School of Science and Columbia University, where he earned his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering in 1946. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1944 to 1946, and worked as a chemist from 1946 to 1951.

Robert first came to the Vineyard in the 1950s and acquired his home on Lake Tashmoo in 1970. He and Virginia were neighbors and friends of Sydna White and Isabel and Pat West. Robert spent as much time as he could on the Vineyard, where he enjoyed his garden, the views over Tashmoo, and entertaining family and friends with his humor, his insightful conversation and his culinary skills.

He was a founding member of the Society for Neuroscience, and an active member of the New York Academy of Sciences and its psychology section. He co-edited the academy volumes The Self Across Psychology and Psychology: Perspectives and Practice. His early research was on the experimental analysis of learned behavior in various animal species; his later work focused on self-awareness and self-conception in monkeys and chimpanzees.

He is survived by his partner of 30 years, Virginia Held, a professor of philosophy at CUNY; her children, their spouses, and her grandchildren, to whom he was always Grandpa Robert. He also leaves his stepdaughter Elyn MacInnis, her husband and their daughters, who will miss their Grandba.