Clark’s setting as a small, urban research university provides a wealth of opportunities to grow as an independent researcher. Below, learn more about research in our three doctoral programs in psychology: clinical, developmental, and social.
Graduate Research
Your Research Experience at Clark
Our Research in Clinical Psychology
Clark’s setting as a small, urban research university provides a wealth of opportunities to grow as an independent researcher. Using a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods, our clinical psychology graduate program ensures students receive extensive research training that builds cumulatively from foundational and more heavily mentored experiences to more independent activities, including building a research portfolio and completing an independent dissertation study.
As teaching assistants and through lab work, graduate students collaborate with faculty, their cohorts, and undergraduates while managing and mentoring teams. Indeed, much research takes place with and among our partners in the greater Worcester community. Graduate students present their work at external conferences and at Clark’s Graduate Student Multidisciplinary Conference, and publish in leading journals like Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, Child Development, the Journal of Early Adolescence, the Journal of Marriage and Family, the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, and Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology.
The small size of our program allows students to build close mentored relationships with their faculty advisers who are recognized experts in their fields.
Recent Dissertations and Publications in Clinical Psychology
Our Research in Developmental Psychology
A core part of graduate training in developmental psychology involves participation in one of the active labs or areas of research described below. Students join one or more of these groups and remain active throughout their graduate studies. Click on the individual labs or research groups to learn more about the topical focus and students, postdocs, and visitors involved.
Note as well that the developmental forum provides an opportunity for all members of these groups (as well as other interested individuals) to regularly come together to discuss current research and salient issues pertaining to developmental psychology of interest to all in the program.
Recent Dissertations and Publications in Developmental Psychology
Ph.D. students in developmental psychology conduct research that examines a spectrum of human development ranging from analyzing the experiences of LGBTQ emerging adults to identity in and outside of ethnic, and beyond.
Our Research in Social Psychology
From studying the psychology of activism to politically motivated intergroup conflict and violence, Clark’s social psychology graduate students analyze some of the day’s most pertinent issues using quantitative and qualitative research methods. Our graduate program ensures students receive extensive research training that builds cumulatively from foundational and more heavily mentored experiences to more independent activities, like building a research portfolio and dissertation research. Much of our faculty and student research takes place within community settings, locally or internationally.
Through lab work, graduate students collaborate among faculty, their cohorts, and undergraduates. Graduate students present their work at external conferences such as the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the International Society of Political Psychology, or the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and at Clark’s Graduate Student Multidisciplinary Conference, and publish in journals like Feminism and Psychology, the Journal of Social Issues, and Psychology of Men and Masculinity. Graduate students’ scholarship, along with our faculty’s research, is diverse both in theory and method, which is a mark of distinction and strength across our department’s three programs.
Our faculty has guest-edited special issues in the Journal of Social Issues as well as the European Journal of Social Psychology and founded the Journal of Social and Political Psychology. Their research and expertise have been recognized with funding from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Psychological Association, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, among others.
At the heart of our research are the program and department’s research groups, forums, and lab meetings where faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students discuss common theoretical concerns and research interests. In fact, graduate students are encouraged to work closely with one another, with advanced undergraduate students, and with faculty colleagues in developing their program of research with the goal of growing as an independent researcher.
Recent Dissertations and Publications in Social Psychology
Contact Information
Frances L. Hiatt School of Psychology
Office Location
-
Jonas Clark Hall, 3rd floor
950 Main Street
Worcester MA 01610 - 1-508-793-7274
- 1-508-793-7265 Fax
Quick Links
Copyright © 2025 Clark University
Public Information
|
Privacy Policy
|
Website Accessibility
|
Nondiscrimination Policy