Marty Singer, PhD, Vanderbilt Alumni
Marty Singer — PhD, Vanderbilt University, 1977 — was surprised recently by the announcement that the book he wrote, edited, and published in 1982, based on his PhD thesis, will soon be republished. It is noteworthy that Marty’s research on reading in the 1970s and his book on that work remains fresh and relevant to contemporary interest in the development of reading skills.
(ISBN 9781032639277, 186 Pages, December 1, 2025, by Routledge.) (https://www.routledge.com/Competent-Reader-Disabled-Reader-Research-and-Application/Singer/p/book/9781032639277?)
Marty was one of our department’s many influential graduate students. He had a rewarding professional career outside of academia. After Vanderbilt, he took a post-doctoral fellowship in developmental psychology at the U. of Denver and subsequently was Assoc. Prof. at the
U. of Delaware. During that time, at a Psychonomic Society convention in Arizona, he met Bela Julesz, a pioneer in research on visual perception and especially stereopsis. Bela asked Marty to drive him on the Apache Trail outside Tempe. After conversation with Bela about his life in Hungary, his difficult choice to leave Hungary in 1956, and his research at Bell Labs, and after discussing Marty’s research and career plans, Bela said, “you should apply for a job at Bell Labs. I will sponsor you.”
At Bell Labs Marty was hired as a Human Factors Engineer. He studied small businesses and communications technology, and was given roles interacting with technology suppliers, large businesses, and government agencies. That path led him from New Jersey to Tellabs in Illinois, then Vice President and Director of Motorola’s Cellular Infrastructure Group, then CEO of a 
wireless test and measurement company that he grew into a business later bought by a larger technology company, and was CEO of PCTEL from 2001-2017, when he retired. He holds twelve patents in telecommunications. Marty credits part of his success in business and technology to his scientific training in experimental psychology. Marty currently serves as Executive Director of the Jeffrey Seller Family Foundation, funded by Marty’s cousin Jeffrey Seller (Producer of Tony-winning Broadway shows Rent, Hamilton, In the Heights, Avenue Q, and others). The photo at the right shows Marty with the youngest of his six grandchildren