top of page

Daniel Kortenkamp Ph.D.

Emeritus Professor 
Dept. of Psychology
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Stevens Point, WI 54481
dkortenk@uwsp.edu 
Home Phone: (715) 344-5844

  I was born in the dining room of a farm house to kerosene light near Aurora, Iowa.  During WWII my family moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, where my father worked at the Bomber Modification Center # 12, Holman Airfield.  He installed escape hatches for tail and waist gunners, windows, Plexiglas gunnery ports, and radar domes on B-24 bombers.  After the war we moved to Oelwein, Iowa, where my father worked as an auto mechanic; his longest tenure was at the Packard dealership.  (Incidentally, Walter P. Chrysler built his first car in 1908 while living in Oelwein.)  I graduated from high school in 1955 (my memory of “Rock Around the Clock”).  I worked as a receptionist-bookkeeper at Radio Station KOEL, a time-and-motion study inspector at Donaldson’s Mfg. Oelwein plant (manufacturing air cleaners and mufflers), a machine operator (“gear hobber set-up operator”) machining helical teeth in gears at John Deere Tractor Factory, Waterloo, Iowa; and finally as a postal worker at the Oelwein Post Office.  I quit the Post Office in 1957 and enrolled at Loras College, Dubuque, Iowa, majoring in physics as a freshman, pre-med as a sophomore, general science and education as a junior, and psychology as a senior (B.S. degree).  During vacations I enjoyed hitchhiking around the U.S. and in Mexico (over 20,000 miles border-to-border and coast-to-coast).   In 1959, while hitching through Georgia, I was picked up by rock and roll legend Little Richard – “the originator, the emancipator, the architect of rock and roll.”  After college I attended the University of Iowa, Iowa City, and received my M.A. in counseling psychology.  I worked several years as a counselor and college professor, before returning to graduate school to obtain my Ph.D. in clinical psychology from St. Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri.  I interned in the Mental Hygiene Unit of the Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center, Des Moines, Iowa.   My dissertation involved the psychophysical scaling of metaphorical dimensions to measure subjective states of consciousness.  Before coming to UW-Stevens Point in 1966, I taught at the University of St. Francis,Fort Wayne, Indiana; where I also worked in the Counseling Center.  I have also worked as a clinical psychologist at the Veteran’s Affairs Medical Hospital in Tomah, Wisconsin – the largest (600+ beds) psychiatric hospital in the VA system.  I retired in 2002 from university teaching.  My teaching areas of specialization were -- Consciousness, Altered States of Consciousness, Transpersonal Psychology, Parapsychology, and Asian Psychology.  I enjoy working on my house, traveling, genealogy, and distance running (marathon PR:  3:17, Oktoberfest Maple Leaf Marathon, La Crosse, WI).  My wife retired 2003, as Director of Religious Education, at St. Stephen Parish, Stevens Point.  We have 9 children -- 5 daughters, 4 sons.  Six have doctorates (astronomy, astrophysics, robotics/artificial intelligence, clinical neuropsychology, experimental psychology, corporate tax law), 3 have master's (audiology, French horn performance, science education).  All have run marathons; 3 finished full Ironman Triathlons. 

bottom of page