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Psychological Sciences

Psychological Sciences
  2. Graduate Program
  3. Prospective Students
  4. Why apply to Vanderbilt?

Why apply to Vanderbilt?

 

Wilson lawn

 

Why you should apply to the Graduate Program in Psychological Sciences at Vanderbilt University:

Because of the world-class faculty.

  • The Psychological Sciences program hosts two National Academy of Science members, placing it in the top ten of Psychology Departments in the nation.
  • Our program ranks third in the nation for the number of recipients of the Troland award, arguably the most prestigious prize in Experimental Psychology for investigators under 40.
  • Among the faculty are recipients of both the Early and the Established Career awards for the most Distinguished Contributions to Clinical Psychology.
  • Our faculty are winners of both the Young Investigator awards and the George Miller Distinguished Career award from the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, and recipients of the U.S. Presidential Early Career for Achievement in Science and Engineering.
  • We have multiple winners of the Early Career Awards from various sections of the APA and from the Vision Sciences Society.
  • We have recipients of the Joseph Zubin Memorial Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychopathology and for the NARSAD Independent Investigator Awards.
  • Several of our faculty are Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, the Society of Experimental Psychologists, the Sloan and Whitehall Research Foundations, and the American Association of Anatomists.
  • Some of our faculty hold editor-in-chief positions in flagship journals of the field, such as the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General and Cognitive Psychology.
  • Many faculty are among the most cited in their respective fields.
  • In summary, our faculty is composed not only of some of the most established scientists in their respective fields, but also of the brightest young minds.

Because our Graduate Program fosters the next generations of leaders in the field.

  • Graduates who have carried out their Ph.D. work in the laboratories of our Psychology faculty hold faculty positions at such top research institutions as Harvard, MIT, Johns Hopkins, University of Pennsylvania, Duke and Emory University, among others.
  • We produce outstanding young scientists in part because our Graduate program emphasizes a mentorship model that promotes a close scientific rapport between the student and faculty, as well as fostering scientific collaborations among students and other faculty.
  • Our program particularly emphasizes research from Day 1 of attending Graduate School, but at the same time we also expose students to a course curriculum that provides them with a firm theoretical and methodological foundation of the field, as well as with the necessary tools (such as workshops on grant writing and professional development) to successfully navigate a career path in academia and research.
  • Many of our faculty are members of the Peabody School of Education, rated Number 1 in the nation, while several other faculty are members of Vanderbilt's Interdepartmental Neuroscience Graduate Program, which has been rated as the best in the nation in 2012 by the Society for Neuroscience.

Because our facilities and scientific environment are second to none.

  • Our faculty either own or have access to state-of-the-art facilities and equipment to carry out cutting-edge research, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) housed in the world-class Institute of Imaging Science, electro-encephalography (EEG), trans-cranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), transcranial direct stimulation (tCDS), optical imaging, positron emission tomography (PET), electrophysiology, optogenetics, neuroimaging genetics, and many others.
  • We regularly invite nationally and internationally-recognized scientists to present their latest research at Vanderbilt, some of whom are invited and hosted by graduate students. We also hold several specialized seminar series to promote scientific discussions and collaborations among members of the Vanderbilt Psychology community. Students are expected to present their research in these seminars, which provide a nurturing forum for the students to hone their presentation skills