Welcome to our page for the Developmental, Social, and Health program of the Department of Psychology! Within our program, there are several available tracks for PhD students to pursue in their research, coursework, and program requirements. Students may choose to focus on one or more tracks (e.g., Social or Developmental or Health, or Social and Developmental, etc.). Note: Students interested in the Health Psychology track should explore more about our interdisciplinary "Health Psychology Concentration" for PhD students: https://psychology.as.uky.edu/health-psychology-concentration

In the Developmental, Social, Health program, students typically receive primary conceptual and methodological training in Developmental Psychology, Social Psychology, OR Health Psychology (each are “tracks” within our program). This training will reflect the expertise of your advisor (and lab) in their respective subfield (e.g., Social Psychology) and will prepare you for the academic job market in this subfield.

As some faculty in the Developmental, Social, and Health program are truly “hybrid” psychologists (equivalent expertise in Social and Developmental Psychology, for example), you may also, if you so choose, gear your training across subfields by pursuing relevant coursework, research collaborations, teaching experiences, etc. We understand that Psychology is increasingly integrative across topic areas, which is one of the features of our collaborative Developmental, Social, and Health program. As part of our program, we encourage you to complete the requirements of your training in ways that maximize your professional development, career goals, and interests.

Our goals are to inspire you to reach your highest potential and to fulfill our responsibility as faculty by giving you the best training possible. We seek to prepare students in our graduate program for research or teaching careers. We believe this can best be accomplished by creating high expectations and setting high standards. While we set high expectations for our students, we also have complete confidence in your ability to meet these standards. We believe that our expectations reflect what is necessary to succeed in today’s competitive job market.

Prospective PhD students: Please directly contact any faculty members with whom you are interested in working for more information. To apply for the Developmental, Social, and Health PhD program, please click on the “Experimental Psychology” (vs. “Clinical Psychology”) option on the Graduate School application website.  

Please see the program graduate handbook for more detailed information. We hope that the information is helpful to you! As always, we welcome feedback and are open to suggestions and innovations.

                  Information regarding applying and the online application system may be found here.

                                              Click here for Program Handbook and Curriculum

Please contact Tamra Nowitzki with questions regarding graduate program applications.

tamra.nowitzki@uky.edu, (859) 257-9640