Welcome to the Department of Psychology! We are 110 years in the making and going strong, with the most recent 2019 Shanghai rating placing our department in the top echelon of psychology departments worldwide (#12 out of 500).
Our faculty conduct cutting-edge research in wide-ranging domains, including:
- computational neuroscience (i.e., understanding brain function via information processing properties of nervous system structures);
- neuroimaging (e.g., structural and functional brain changes in child development, aging, stress, and chronic health conditions);
- biobehavioral processes in health maitenance and in diseases such as cancer, neurological disoders (e.g., Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, brain injury), and cardiovascular disease;
- neurobiological influences on behavior and development;
- social processes in human interactions (e.g., psychology of attitudes, persuasion and prejudice);
- cognitive and behavioral processes in treatment of psychopathology;
- advanced aproaches to quantitative analysis of data; and
- decision psychology (i.e., psychological and neuroscientific underpinnings in judgments and decision-making).
Our faculty have been remarkably successful at securing external grant funding for research, most of which is inter-disciplinary, often conducted with faculty from other departments and colleges across campus, with colleagues in the medical school and the business school, and with national and international collaborators.
Our training programs also are outstanding. The undergraduate program continues to thrive, with over 1800 majors-- making us the third largest major at the University. A degree in Psychology from OSU provides intellectual training suitable for a wide range of occupations, and our graduates have achieved success in fields such as business, academia, medicine, clinical psychology, gerontology, social work, marketing, public relations, law, and much more. Approximately 50% of our graduates pursue postgraduate education in various fields, including not only psychology and medicine, but also human resources, nursing, public health, occupational and physical therapy, city and regional planning, and public policy. Our undergraduates are trained to embrace the challenges of the modern world, to approach these challenges in a thoughtful and critical manner, and to be prepared with creative solutions. Within our highly-ranked doctoral program, we currently train approximately 165 students in one of eight tracks- behavioral neuroscience, clinical science, cognitive, decision science, developmental, intellectural and developmental disabilities, quantitative, and social psychology. During the coming year, we will be expanding the doctoral program to include a new cross-disciplinary area of research and training in cognitive neuroscience. Today, graduates of our doctoral program populate faculties of universities across the country and around the globe.
Psychology at OSU is rich with opportunities for research and training at every level!
We welcome you to our website, and we encourage alumni to visit campus and the department in the near future. You'll find the excitement is contagious!
Regards,
Charles F. Emery, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair