Welcome from the Chair

Dr. Brodsky and Psychology faculty at the December 2018 graduation

Anne Brodsky

Professor and Chair

Welcome to the UMBC Department of Psychology Department Website.  We are glad you decided to drop by electronically.  I’m proud to be able to chair this amazing group of scholars, activists, and students, and hope the thumbnail sketch below will help you see why.

The bottom line, first

If you are interested in why people, groups, organizations, systems, and cultures think, feel, and act the way they do, you should consider joining us as we seek answers through classes, research, and community engagement that spans the smallest individual neuron to the largest community networks.

Who we are

Our 34 full-time faculty members, 75 graduate students, 1000 undergraduate majors and nearly 500 minors on main campus and at the Universities at Shady Grove make the Department of Psychology the largest department in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Science, the fourth largest major, and largest minor at UMBC.  All these people are on to something exciting and we invite you to come learn more about what it is.

 

What we do:

We aim to do work that enhances the voices, resources, and pathways to success for people from all around the region, country, and the world. We are committed to doing good science that promotes social justice, equitable community partnerships, and positive engagement among all our communities.

Our faculty have lived and worked around the world (including most recently Malaysia, Ghana, China, Portugal, Canada, Afghanistan, Italy).  They teach exciting classes and do cutting edge research on a wide range of topics including: preventing psychosis; gender differences in STEM outcomes; stigma and sickle cell disease; post-incarceration community reintegration; the impact of discrimination on cardiovascular disease; treatment of severe problem behaviors; pain; familial academic socialization; sense of community; prevention of relationship violence; and much more.

We offer 10 programs and tracks for undergraduate and graduate students in a variety of specializations that prepares them to for work in the public and private sector, including in hospitals, schools and universities, the technology and data science sector, business and industry, start-ups, government, and just about any where your imagination and ingenuity can take you.

What you can do with a psychology degree

Our graduates go on to successful careers in ABA, clinical, community, behavioral medicine, developmental, and Industrial/Organizational psychology, as well as social work, medicine, physical and occupational therapy, law, business, human relations, and more.  UMBC Psychology alums work at the NIH, Harvard University, the American Psychological Association, University of Alaska, Westat, the Maryland State House, (did you know that the current Speaker of the House. Adrienne Jones is one of our grads?)  Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital, Morgan State University, in private practice, public schools around the country and loads more places.  Where will you take your PSYC degree?

Interest in learning more?

If this all sounds interesting to you, please come see us IRL on the 3rd floor of the Math/Psychology Building, give us a call at 410 455-2567, or drop us an email at psychology@umbc.edu.  There is plenty more to read on the rest of our website, including application deadlines HERE.