Doctoral students must take a minimum of 48 hours of graduate course credits, which include the following: 

• 3 Area Core Courses (e.g., Developmental Psychology) - 9 Credits
• 3 Quantitative Methods Courses (e.g., multivariate statistics) - 9 credits
• The Professional Issues Course - 1 credit
• Additional Elective Courses (selected in consultation with the advisor) - 29 credits

Students will also complete

• Master's thesis in psychology, including the production of at least one empirical study
• Satisfactory performance on a comprehensive preliminary examination
• Proposal and completion of an original dissertation research project
• Successful defense of the written doctoral dissertation through an oral examination

Current areas of research interest include:

• Brain, cognition and developmental science (BCDS)
• Social psychology
• Health psychology (certificate) 

Throughout the graduate career, students conduct research with any department faculty member, and often elect to conduct research with several faculty to support interdisciplinary interests. 

The Ph.D. is a research degree. Students therefore are expected to be active in research throughout their graduate careers, beyond their thesis and dissertation projects. Students should be contributing substantively to the research programs of the fulltime department tenure stream faculty, and carving out their own research niche. 

Development of research skills and techniques, conference presentations, and co-authorship of publications are critical to the Ph.D. degree. Students are expected to begin their participation in research as soon as possible, usually in their first semester. By the end of the first year, students in the Psychological Science clusters (Cognitive Behavioral Neuroscience, Developmental Psychology, or Social Psychology) must deliver a short presentation of the research in which they have been involved that year.

Research for the beginning student is supervised closely by faculty members, often in conjunction with an advanced graduate student. A student's research involvement may be initiated by simply making an appointment with the faculty member whose research interests match most closely the student's interests. It is expected that the student will discuss research with a number of faculty members before committing him/herself to work with a specific faculty member. Of course, it is possible for the student to work with more than one faculty member, and in fact, students are encouraged not to restrict their research to that conducted in a single laboratory.