Developmental Program

Chair: Susan B. Campbell, PhD

Application Deadline: December 1

The Developmental Program trains students at the doctoral level in the major areas of development including socio-emotional development, cognitive development, language development, and social-cognitive development. The goal of the program is to train productive developmental scholars and scientists who will work in academic settings or in other settings where an indepth knowledge of child development is required.  Graduates of the program typically are hired into academic positions, although students also take positions in social policy institutes and other more applied settings.

The program strengths include the high quality of faculty research, teaching, and mentoring and the excellent support for students, who are treated as junior colleagues in a community of developmental scholars.  Collaborative and cross-disciplinary research is encouraged and students are expected to become productive scholars in their own right with presentations and publications to their credit by the time they earn the Ph.D.  This is facilitated through active research labs, intensive mentoring, informal seminars and brown bags, colloquia, and student attendance at and participation in national and international meetings.  Students achieve expertise in a particular substantive area within developmental psychology while acquiring broad exposure to related topics.  Students master the basic theoretical issues that drive inquiry in developmental psychology and the research methods needed to address both basic and applied research questions. 

Students with special interests in language acquisition may wish to explore the Developmental Linguistics Concentration.

For additional information, see Developmental Program Student Handbook

 


Observing toddler social skills in the Developmental Psychology lab.

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