OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
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Health psychology is dedicated to conducting basic and applied research on determinants of health, illness, and disability. Health psychologists are concerned with promoting and maintaining health through the prevention and treatment of illness across the lifespan and the improvement of systems that promote and maintain health.
The health psychology area is committed to the mission of Oregon State University and its Signature Area of Improving Health and Wellness, as well as the Strategic Plan of the Oregon Health Authority. The goal of our program is to produce outstanding research scientists who will contribute to the understanding of how psychological processes intersect with physical and mental health and wellness in diverse populations with regard to age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic background, and health status. To this end, our program provides training in the development and use of psychological theories, research findings, and methodologies to elucidate issues in physical and mental health. The health area is applied by nature because it solves real-world problems and promotes health and well-being.
SPS faculty have special interests in the developmental and cultural contexts of health and disability, the promotion of health among underrepresented groups, and the intersections of health psychology with other areas and disciplines; specifically, neuroscience, gerontology, developmental, social, and clinical psychology, women’s and gender studies, and disability studies.
The graduate program in the health psychology area trains students for post-graduate research positions and careers in academia, government, industry, and healthcare facilities conducting biomedical and bio-behavioral investigations, and providing consultation on health care and health policy. Please note that our program does not provide clinical training and is not designed to prepare students for clinical licensure.
Students who enroll in the SPS Ph.D. program concentrating in Health Psychology are expected to develop a strong background of research skills and a broad knowledge of health and social psychology, as well as a variety of related subfields as appropriate to their specific interests and mentor match.
What we look for in applicants to the Health Psychology Area:
Our faculty conduct research in the following areas:
Dr. Kathleen Bogart (Disability and Social Interaction Lab) – Research interests include disability from a social/health psychology perspective, examining others’ attitudes toward disability and the way people with disability adapt, manage stigma, and develop disability identity. Recent work is especially focused on quality of life in facial paralysis and other rare disorders. Dr. Bogart is particularly interested in examining intersections of disability with other identities including race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. (Currently accepting students.)
Dr. Daniel Bradford (Biology, Emotion, Addiction Via Experimental Replication Science (BEAVERS) lab) – Research interests include using a reproducible, multi-method experimental psychopathology approach to studying affective and emotional responses to stressors and how commonly used drugs change those responses. Recent projects include the importance of stressor certainty and controllability to drugs’ effects on stressor responses, searching for evidence of drug-induced neuroadaptations to stressors, and increasing diversity and equity by highlighting the importance of intersectionality in research using psychophysiology methods. (Currently accepting students.)
Dr. Anita Cservenka (Substance Use & Neurocognition (SUN) Lab) – (Substance Use & Neurocognition (SUN) Lab) – Research interests include the effects of adolescent and adult substance use (particularly cannabis and alcohol use) on neurocognitive functioning, and how personality factors, socio-demographics (e.g. age, sex, race, ethnicity), as well as internalizing and externalizing symptoms, are related to substance use patterns and methods of use. (Currently accepting students.)
Dr. Jessee Dietch (Sleep Health Assessment, Intervention & Dissemination (SHAID) Lab) – Research interests include 1) improving sleep health, particularly by developing, adapting, and increasing accessibility to interventions, 2) exploring the relationship between sleep, mental, and physical health in special populations, including sleep health disparities, and 3) developing, validating, and evaluating measures of sleep health and sleep disorders. Dr. Dietch is especially interesting in examining sleep in diverse and understudied populations. (Currently accepting students.)
Dr. David Kerr (Youth Adjustment Lab) – Research interests include social influences on substance use, depression, and suicide risk among adolescents and young adults, often using long term longitudinal data or large survey data. Examples of recent projects include studies of behavior changes following recreational cannabis legalization; etiology and prevention of seasonal depression; and differences in depression and substance use by young adults’ sexual, gender, and ethnic identities. (Currently accepting students.)
Dr. Hannah Lawrence (Translational Imagery, Depression, and Emotion Science (TIDES) Lab) - Research interests include risk factors for adolescent depression and suicide and designs and tests scalable interventions to reduce this risk. Much of the lab's research focuses on the role of mental imagery. (Currently accepting students.)
Dr. Steven Sanders (Adjustment, Identity, and Racism (AIR) Lab) - Research interests include racial trauma, posttraumatic stress, maladaptive adjustment, coping strategies, and racism. (Currently accepting doctoral students for Fall 2023).
Dr. Aurora Sherman (Research on Internalization, Sexualization, and Equity (RISE) Lab) – Research interests include gender, gender socialization and health and social relationships across the life span, as well as personality factors in satisfaction with relationship, and the impact of sexualization on psycho-social and cognitive functioning in childhood and adulthood. (Currently accepting students.)