Welcome to the Department of Psychology!

The University of Minnesota Duluth is a fantastic place to study psychology! Surely some bias is present, but the truth is that I would not be the Head of UMD Psychology if I did not have a deep love and respect for our vibrant, dynamic, and engaged community of students, faculty, and alumni. My colleagues in our faculty are a diverse set of individuals who bring a variety of perspectives on what psychology is and what it should be in the future. They have won awards in recent years for outstanding teaching, research, advising and service. We–and our undergraduate and graduate students–do research related to addictive behavior, behavior analysis, evolutionary psychology, healthy behavior and self-regulation, industrial and organizational issues, language and literacy development, mechanisms of change in psychotherapy, mental health of children and families, movement and movement coordination, neuroscience, occupational safety, personal development, psychophysiology, romantic and sexual behavior, social psychology of entitlement and prejudice, the scholarship of teaching and learning, special education in impoverished regions, supporting community organizations, only to name a few. Our varied talents, perspectives, and training backgrounds allow us to offer an unusually strong combination of applied and research opportunities to our students.

We have affiliations with over 30 service providers, institutions and agencies that allow for structured, supervised internships. We also provide an opportunity for students to gain high-quality research training in psychology. We accomplish this both through our extensive methods courses and by providing research supervision in our laboratories and community projects. We have a variety of courses in biological, clinical-counseling, cognitive, developmental, industrial-organizational, and social psychology. Our courses are grounded in theory and research with an eye toward fostering critical thinking. Class-size for upper-level undergraduate courses is generally 30 students, so instructors can provide more individualized attention than at larger institutions. We also offer a nationally-ranked entirely online undergraduate program in psychology. We have an active student community with several clubs and organizations related to psychology. Students tell us that they feel a sense of belonging. They also tell us that they feel that the faculty know them, support them and care about how they are doing. I truly believe this reflects our greatest strength. Our faculty are strongly committed to student learning and development.