It is with great sadness that we, his colleagues from the Universities of Leuven, let you know that Professor Eddy Van Avermaet passed away on April 1 2025. Eddy was an alumnus of the University of Leuven and started his career as a social psychologist with a Harkness PhD fellowship at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He wrote his PhD thesis on ‘Equity: A theoretical and experimental analysis’ (1975) under supervision of Professor Charles McClintock, after which he was offered a faculty position at his Alma Mater, the University of Leuven in 1976.

Eddy’s greatest talent was to inspire others, to connect, and to make things happen for the collective good. He was passionate about his university and the social psychology area within it and, for many years, he played a major role in the European Association for Social Psychology, a commitment from which all of us benefited.

Starting shortly after his tenure at the University of Leuven, Eddy became the chair and steward of the Laboratory of Experimental Social Psychology, later renamed as the Center for Social and Cultural Psychology; he remained so right up to his retirement. He also served the University in any position imaginable: as the chair of the psychology department, the vice-president of education, the representative and secretary of the Flemish University Council. Eddy was a warm, generous, supportive and inspiring mentor and colleague for all who knew him.

Eddy was a passionate teacher with a contagious love for social psychology that he shared with many generations of Leuven students. He was known for his engaging teaching style, long before activating formats became fashionable in academia. For instance, each year Eddy’s students in his social psychology course learned about social dilemma’s by playing a game for money –Eddy’s money. The students elected him more than once as “best teacher of the year.” In the fall of 2024, 12 years after his retirement, Eddy returned one more time to teach the freshmen course of Social Psychology: The students loved him more than ever.

In 2011, Eddy Van Avermaet received the Jean-Paul Codol Medal for his significant contributions to the EASP. With his never-ending enthusiasm and talent to bring people together, Eddy had joined forces with other Belgian colleagues to organize the first large joint meeting between EASP and SESP, its American counterpart. Eddy also organized the 1998 EASP Summer School in Leuven. He was member of the executive committee of EASP from 2002 - 2008. Moreover, he served as the Editor of the European Journal for Social Psychology from 1994-1997. To mark EASP’s 50th anniversary, the Executive Committee asked Eddy to write an account of the history of EASP. He presented it at the General Meeting in Granada (2017); it was a history that he did not only write about, but contributed to over many years. Eddy will be remembered for his enthusiasm, his generosity, his sharp intellect, his talent to get to the core of the matter right away and before anybody else did, and his willingness to shoulder any work that would contribute to the common good.

Eddy is survived by his wife Katrijn and his five children. Messages and memories for his family can be left at https://www.pues.be/condoleren-rouwbrieven/eddy-van-avermaet