General Description

The Doctoral Program in Cognitive and Behavioral Sciences provides a foundation in cognitive processes and the fundamental conditioning processes that underlie behavior. Our faculty members actively exploring both of these classic pillars of the behavioral sciences as they play out in a number of contemporary domains, including comparisons of human and animal behavior, extensions to the neurosciences, application with the developmentally disabled, behavioral pharmacology and toxicology, and in language and language development. The scope of research in our program can be seen by looking through the interests of our faculty.

Our faculty offer a superb education because they are highly involved in their research and teaching activities. This involvement is recognized in many forms, including funding from federal and state agencies that supports research activities, including those of graduate students. Our faculty have also been elected to important national offices, serve on editorial boards of key journals in their areas, federal panels, and in many other ways demonstrate involvement in their science and their profession. This is important for students because it means that the student's training will be solidly grounded and on the cutting edge of the discipline.

In applications, we emphasize and encourage linking basic and applied research and teaching. Students are exposed to a blend of didactic, practical, and scholarly activities that can be tailored to provide a broad education. All first-year students are trained as teaching assistants, and some choose to fulfill requirements to become Teaching Fellows in Psychology.

While graduate students work closely with their mentor, because of our modest size the doctoral students in all programs come to know each other very well and form personal and professional relationships that last a lifetime. These begin with the first-year experience, during which core courses are taking by students in all three programs but are sustained in many ways throughout graduate school.

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Last updated on April 15, 2004