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The Developmental Area has research strengths in social and cognitive development from infancy through adulthood. Many faculty in the Psychology Department have developmental interests, but the core Developmental faculty are:

• Tobias Grossmann studies the developmental and brain origins of human social abilities and their variability in infancy.
• Vikram Jaswal’s research focuses on communication and social interaction in autism, with a focus on nonspeaking autistic people.
• Angeline Lillard’s research is related primarily to issues related to Montessori Education, from a base of research in cognitive and social cognitive development, including play and pretend play, theory of mind, and executive function.
• Amrisha Vaish works on questions related to moral development.

The Developmental program has 8-12 PhD students in residence. We usually admit 1-3 new PhD students each admissions cycle. (We do not offer a terminal Master’s degree.) The focus of our program is empirical research. Students begin research with a primary mentor immediately on arrival, almost always in an area that is directly aligned with the mentor’s expertise. The first two years of research culminate in a paper that is expected to be suitable for submission for publication. In the third year, students continue research and complete a Comprehensive Exam that includes an additional major paper or grant proposal. Coursework insuring basic developmental and statistical knowledge as well as ethics and more specialized seminars is completed in the first 2-3 years of the PhD program. PhD students embark on their dissertation project (usually an extension of their earlier research) in their fourth and fifth years. Most graduate students in our program complete their PhD by May of their fifth year. PhD students in our program are currently fully funded (tuition, health insurance, stipend) for five years.

Students are encouraged to develop collaborations outside their primary lab, across Developmental and other areas. A number of faculty have developmental interests even though their primary affiliation is not in our area. This includes Jess Connelly (SBN), Joe Allen (Clinical), Charlotte Patterson (Community), Noelle Hurd (Clinical/Community), Jennifer MacCormack (Social), Channing Matthews (Community), Jamie Morris (Cognitive/Social), Stefanie Sequeira (Clinical), and Dan Willingham (Cognitive). Note! If your primary interests are aligned with any of these faculty, do not apply via Developmental; you should reach out to them and specify their area in your application.

We have an active teaching-to-teach program in the department and an excellent university-wide Center for Teaching Excellence. In their early years, graduate students grade and run review sessions, then move to teaching discussion sections, and finally can apply to teach their own advanced undergraduate seminar. The amount of teaching depends on the availability of research funding. Some students teach less if they obtain their own funding from the National Science Foundation or other sources, or if they are funded on their advisors’ grants.

Recent alumni are now faculty members at Amherst College, Arizona State University, Florida Atlantic University, FLAME University, James Madison University, Providence College, Rutgers University, and the University of Virginia. They have secured jobs outside academia in industry, government, and the nonprofit sectors, including at the Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy, DeLoitte Consulting, Sirius Thinking, WestEd, and Worcester Public Schools. And they have landed excellent post-docs at institutions like Temple University, the University of Delaware, and the University of Michigan.

Three core developmental faculty (Grossmann, Jaswal, Lillard) are each looking to admit a graduate student during the 2024-25 admission cycle for entrance in August 2025. Prospective graduate students should visit the webpages of faculty with whom they are interested in working and contact those faculty members directly before applying. In your application, you will be asked to specify an area and to list faculty you are interested in working with. When you apply to work with one of the four core developmental faculty, be sure to specify “Developmental” on your application and to list their name.

Please note: The application for the PhD programs in the Department of Psychology has eliminated the GRE requirement, beginning with the applications for the 2021 admissions.