Faculty & Staff

For office hours and information, click on a faculty member’s name below.

Department Chairs

Psychology – Lydia Eckstein (Associate Professor), B.S. and M.S., Humboldt University Berlin; Ph.D., University of Tennessee Knoxville. Research Interests:Social & Political Psychology; intergroup conflict, violence, and aggression; predictors and justification of unethical behavior.

Neuroscience – Jeff Hollerman (Associate Professor), B.S., Allegheny College; M.S., Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh. Research Interests: Neuroscience; neural substrates of learning and memory.


Full-time Faculty

Megan Bertholomey (Assistant Professor), B.A., Knox College; M.S., Ph.D., Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis. Research Interests: Neuroscience, drug-seeking (especially alcohol), behavioral pharmacology, influence of stress and sex hormones on mental illness.

Monali Chowdhury (Associate Professor), B.S., Calcutta University, India; M.A., Ph.D., The Ohio State University. Research Interests:  Research Interests:  (1) Developmental topics in college students including but not limited to (a) social media use, mobile phone use, dating behavior etc., (b) mental health wellness, stigma, and help seeking in college students; (2) Autism spectrum disorders and community support programs in Meadville for these populations.

Rodney Clark (Professor) B.A., California State University–Long Beach; M.A., Ph.D., Western Michigan University. Research Interests: Behavioral pharmacology; operant behavior; drugs and society; biomedical ethics; glutamate and motivation.

Nancy Frambes (Visiting Assistant Professor) B.S., Allegheny College; M.A., SUNY at Binghamton. Research Interests: Drugs and human behavior, alcohol and cannabis use in college students.

Stanislaw Kolek (Visiting Assistant Professor), B.A., Dominican University (IL); M.A., Ph.D., Central Michigan University. Research Interests: Human Factors Psychology; Neuroanatomy; Attention; Perception; Learning; Psychology in sports; vulnerable road users; driver training; driving styles; hazard perception in driving; statistics and data reduction.

Christopher Normile (Assistant Professor), B.A., Bloomsburg University; M.A. Towson University; Ph.D., Central Michigan University. Research Interests: Psychology and Law; Police interrogations and false confessions; perceptions of wrongfully convicted exonerees; juror decision-making; teaching and learning of statistics.

Bavani Paneerselvam (Visiting Assistant Professor/Diversity Teaching Fellow), B.A., SUNY Stony Brook; M.S., Ph.D., Auburn University. Research Interests: Human memory; Testing effect; Metacognition; STEM motivation interventions.

Lauren Paulson (Associate Professor), B.A., M.A. Edinboro University, Ph.D. Duquesne University, Research Interests:  Eating disorders/Disordered eating, & Body image, Exercise; Supervision and Professional Development, Rural Issues and Concerns, Community Counseling

Ryan Pickering (Associate Professor), B.A., University of Maine at Farmington; Ph.D., University of Maine. Research Interests: Social & sustainability psychology, human physiology, stereotype threat, disclosure of stigmatized identity, impact of current and childhood socioeconomic status.

Kristen Warren (Assistant Professor), B.A., Smith College, Ph.D., Northwestern University. Research Interests: human episodic memory, brain networks, neuroimaging, cognitive neuroscience.


Part-time Faculty

Juvia P. Heuchert, (Professor Emerita) B.A., Hons., University of Pretoria; M.Sc., Georgia State University; M.A., Ph.D., Boston University. Research Interests: Clinical psychology, psychopathology; peace psychology.


Staff

Sufana Chowdhury, M.Sc., Academic Building Coordinator

Melody Hingl, Animal Technician, Certified Veterinary Technician License in Pennsylvania


Faculty Emeriti

David Anderson, B.A., Fresno State College; M.A., Ph.D., Washington State University. Research interests: problem-solving; computer-psychology interface; philosophy of science; history of psychology.

Jeffrey Cross, B.A., Allegheny College; M.A., Ph.D., West Virginia University. Autism; animal models of developmental and degenerative disease; neural correlates of learning and abnormal behavior.

J. Alexander (Alec) Dale, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, B.A., Waterloo Lutheran University, 1966; M.A., University of Waterloo, 1969; Ph.D., 1971. Assistant Professor, 1970-77; Associate Professor, 1977-84, Health Professions Advisor, 1976-88; Professor, 1984-2007.

William DeLamarter, B.A., Oakland University; M.S., Ph.D., University of Massachusetts. Gender differences in social power, justice, attitudes; psychology and law.

Deborah Dickey, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, B.A., Pennsylvania State University; M.S., University of Pittsburgh.

Elizabeth Weiss Ozorak, B.A., Wesleyan University; M.A., Ph.D., Harvard University. Research Interests: Positive psychology, Community and local food/slow food, Community activism & Late bloomers.

Patricia Rutledge, B.A., Murray State; M.A., Ph.D., Washington University in St. Louis. College student alcohol use and abuse; thought suppression.

Joshua Searle-White, B.A., Russian Language and Literature, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH. Phi Beta Kappa.  M.A., Clinical Psychology, Clark University, Worcester, MA. Ph.D., Clinical Psychology, Clark University, Worcester, MA. Foundation Course in Psychoanalytic Group Therapy, The Tavistock Clinic, London, UK. 1988-89.  Russian Language Program, Leningrad State University, Leningrad, USSR.  Fall 1980.  Norwich University Russian School, Northfield, VT.  Summer 1979.


Faculty Publications

    • “Cognitive approaches to religion,” published in Handbook of the Psychology of Religion, R. Paloutzian & C. Park (Eds.).
    • “21st Birthday drinking: Extremely extreme,” 
published in The Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology
    • “Premeditated aggression is associated with serum cholesterol in abstinent drug and alcohol dependent men,” published in Psychiatry Research
    • “Phonological facilitation through translation in a bilingual picture-naming task,” published in Bilingualism: Language & Cognition
    • “The five-factor model of personality in South African college students,” published in American Behavioral Scientist.
    • “Dopamine neurons report an error in the temporal prediction of reward during learning,” published in Nature: Neuroscience.