Department of Psychology

Developmental Program Overview

The doctoral program in Developmental Psychology at Penn State offers a flexible program designed to provide students with a broad theoretical and empirical background in developmental psychology coupled with expertise in one or more areas of specialization. Specialty areas may concern basic research questions in cognitive or social development, and/or issues related to the application of developmental psychology to various settings. These goals are met through course work, research projects, practicum experiences, and through the departmental structure requiring mastery of a major and minor area. Depending upon the individual student's particular program of study, graduates may be employed in academic departments, research institutes, governmental agencies, or various service-delivery settings.

Core Faculty at the University Park Campus
Short Bios of all the Core Faculty

Other Faculty and Programs:
Other members of the psychology department at University Park Campus with interests in developmental psychology include: Karen Linn Bierman (social-emotional development); Pamela Cole (developmental psychopathology, development of expressive control, cross-cultural differences in emotion-context and reality-appearance distinction understanding); Ginger Moore (infant emotion development in high-risk contexts); Dan Weiss (cognitive mechanisms underlying language acquisition); Cynthia Huang-Pollock (cognitive and neuropsychological risk factors that contribute to the development of attention, learning, and disruptive behavior problems in school-aged children); Michelle Newman (development of anxiety disorders); and Janet Swim (gender stereotyping, beliefs about child sexual abuse). Students in the program also work with developmental psychologists whose primary affiliations are in other divisions of the University (e.g., the College of Health and Human Development; Intervention Center; Communication Disorders; and the College of Education). Faculty with developmental research programs who have courtesy and joint appointments to Psychology include Doug Teti (HDFS); Cindy Stifter (HDFS); and Mark Greenberg (HDFS). Psychology faculty at other locations whose core area is developmental psychology include: Margaret Benson (children's developing narrative ability and social competence); K. Robert Bridges (socialization in late adolescence, assertiveness); Mark Casteel (development of inference); Helen Hendy (children's eating habits); Margaret Signorella (development of gender schemata); and C. J. R. Simons (development in high risk infants).