Faculty & Staff

Professor of Psychology, Licensed Clinical Psychologist
Chair, Department of Psychology
Faculty Director of the Richmond Scholars Program
Specialties:
- ADHD in Adults
- Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Leadership in Personal Crisis
(804) 287-6347

University Professor Emeritus
Specialties:
- Social Psychology
- Personality Psychology
- Research Methods
- Heroes, Great Leaders, Legends, and Martyrs

Professor of Psychology
Specialties:
- Adult development and aging
- Cognitive and metacognitive aging
- Perceptions and stereotypes of aging
- Support (and non-support) for the Black Lives Matter movement
(804) 289-8130

Dr. Jessica Bourdon
She/Her
Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology
Specialties:
- Addiction
- Translational science
- Psychiatric genetics
- Alcohol and substance use disorder treatment
- Science communication
- Service utilization
- Implementation methods

Professor of Psychology
MacEldin Trawick Professor of Psychology
Interdisciplinary Program Coordinator, Cognitive Science
Specialties:
- Face and object recognition in cognitively intact and impaired individuals
- Development and loss of perceptual expertise across the lifespan
- Factors underlying the way we categorize our world
- Racial bias and other-race effects
- PURSUE: Preparing Undergraduates for Research in STEM Using Electrophysiology (www.pursueerp.com)
(804) 287-6830
Adjunct Lecturer of Psychology
Specialties:
- Rehabilitation Psychology
- Neuropsychology

Trawick Postdoctoral Fellow in Psychology
Specialties:
- Understanding the cognitive and neurological underpinnings involved with visual category learning
- Mathematical/statistical modeling of reaction times and electroencephalogram data
- Using models of decision-making to understand the decisional processes involved with categorization

Distinguished University Professor
Specialties:
- Decision making
- Higher education
- Language processing
(804) 289-8632

Visiting Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science
Specialties:
- Psycholinguistics
- Language comprehension and production
- Crosslinguistic differences in language processing
- Serial ordering in language and motor action
(804) 662-3080

Trawick Postdoctoral Fellow in Psychology
Specialties:
- Neurobiology of emotional circuits
- Cellular and molecular neurophysiology
- Rodent ultrasonic vocalizations
- Brain slice electrophysiology
- Neuroscience & STEM Outreach & Development
(804) 287-1218

Professor of Leadership Studies and Psychology and the Colonel Leo K. & Gaylee Thorsness Endowed Chair in Ethical Leadership; Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Advisory Board Member
Specialties:
- Beliefs Systems (e.g., Mindsets, Stereotypes, and Ideologies)
- Stigma, Stereotyping, and Discrimination
- Social Inequities
(804) 287-6825

Dr. Karen Puccia Kochel
She/Her
Associate Professor of Psychology
Specialties:
- Child and adolescent development
- Peer and gender relationships
- Psychological adjustment
(804) 289-8131

Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience
MacEldin Trawick Professor in Psychology
Co-coordinator, Neuroscience Program
Specialties:
- Experience-based Neuroplasticity
- Neurobiology of Parental Behavior
- Neurobiological Impact of Natural-Enriched Environments
- Effective Coping Strategies and Emotional Resilience
- Comparative Animal Behavior
(804) 289-8132

University Professor Emeritus, Dean of Arts and Sciences Emeritus
Specialties:
- History and philosophy of psychology
- The social, cultural, and conceptual context and impact of psychology
- The relations between psychology and other disciplines
Adjunct Lecturer of Psychology
Specialties:
- College Mental Health
- Positive Psychology
- Threat Assessment in Higher Education

Dr. Matthew Lowder
He/Him
Associate Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science Coordinator
Data Science Advisory Board Member
Specialties:
- Psycholinguistics
- Lexical, syntactic, and semantic processing
- Eye movements during reading
- Individual differences in sentence processing
- Mechanisms of memory and attention that support language comprehension
(804) 662-3078

Associate Professor of Psychology
Specialties:
- Political psychology
- Implicit social cognition
- Prejudice, discrimination, status, and inequality
- Quantitative methods
(804) 289-8113

Professor of Psychology, Emeritus; Dean of Arts and Sciences, Emeritus
Contact:

Dr. Camilla Nonterah
She/Her
Associate Professor of Psychology
Specialties:
- Health disparities
- Multicultural and cross-cultural aspects of mental and physical health
- Psychosocial aspects of chronic illness
- Solid organ transplantation
- Positive psychology
(804) 289-8128

Dr. Janelle Peifer
She/Her
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Specialties:
- College Student Development
- Identity and Intercultural Competence
- Trauma and Resilience
804-287-6663

Assistant Professor of Psychology
Specialties:
- Visual Attention and Memory
- Eye Movements During Search
- Applied Cognition
- Safety Behavior
- Computational Methods
(804) 289-8127

Assistant Professor of Psychology
Specialties:
- Social psychology
- Developmental psychology
- Norms
- Gender
- Policy

Animal Care Specialist
Specialties:
- Exotic Animals
- Veterinary Medicine
- Labratory Animal Science
- Animal Welfare
(804) 287-6509
Adjunct Lecturer of Psychology
Contact: