Experimental Program

Ph.D.Program--Experimental Psychology

• Program Mission
• Representative Course of Study
• Experimental Program Handbook
• Admission
• Evaluation of Applications
• Transfer Credit
• Applying to the Program
• Student Financing
• Contact Us
• Program Faculty

Program Mission

The Experimental Psychology Doctoral Program focuses on the training of research psychologists for employment in academic and non-academic settings. The objective is to develop graduates who will be prepared for a wide variety of research settings, with a strong emphasis on statistical and methodological skills that can be applied to address real-world problems. The program has two emphasis areas, General Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Psychology. The Experimental Psychology program is a mentored program; each admitted student works directly with a specific faculty member who oversees his/her training.

Representative Course of Study

Click here for a representative course of study for the General Experimental Psychology emphasis.

Click here for a representative course of study for the Cognitive Psychology emphasis.

NOTE: *Required core courses for the Experimental Ph.D. program are Cognitive, Developmental, Physiological, and Social psychology). See Graduate Catalog for details.; **Experimental Proseminar is a 1-3 cr. course. Students are required to enroll in this course for their first two years in the program. See Graduate Catalog for details.

Experimental Program Handbook

Click here for the Experimental Program Handbook and Program timeline.

Admission

The program admits students for matriculation only in the Fall semester of each academic year. The application deadline is January 15th prior to the Fall for which matriculation is being requested. The admission process is typically completed by April 15th.

We anticipate entering classes of approximately eight students each year. Typically, admitted students have GPAs above 3.40 and GRE scores above 550 on each required subtest.

Admission Requirements*

• A Bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution or a master’s degree or equivalent from an accredited institution.

• Applicants should have completed at least 18 hours of undergraduate psychology courses including Statistics and Research Methods or their equivalents.

• Scores on the Verbal, Quantitative, and Advanced Psychology sections of the Graduate Record Exam (GRE). For the GRE Testing website, click here. GRE score reporting is cumulative. Current GRE Board policy states that your scores are retained for the 5 testing years following the testing year in which you tested.

Psychology Department Forms

• Three letters of recommendation. Each letter of recommendation written should include a Psychology Department Letter of Recommendation Form (click here) for each recommender. Original letters and the department form required must be sealed in an envelope addressed to the Psychology Department (link to contact info). The recommenders signature must be written across the back envelope seal. It is best to send all 3 letters of recommendation along with your Psychology Department Graduate Program Application form (link to form).

• A Letter of Intent describing your research, educational and professional goals, faculty whom you might be interested in working with, factors that you would want the admissions committee to consider in evalutating your application that are not evident from other materials, and some background information describing how you became interested in these areas.

• A personal interview with members of the program faculty is required for finalists in the selection process. Typically, applicants are notified if they are finalists by late February or early March. If a personal interview is not feasible, a telephone interview may be substituted.

*In unusual circumstances, students who do not meet these admission requirements may be admitted.

Evaluation of Applications

The Admission Requirements represent the minimum standards. Meeting these minimum standards does not guarantee admission. Admission is a competitive process in which the faculty judge each applicant’s credentials with the goal of selecting those who are most qualified and represent the best fit with our Experimental Psychology program. Consideration of fit includes factors such as the applicant’s goals and the program’s goals.

Transfer Credit

A maximum of 24 credits from another graduate program may be approved for transfer into the doctoral program. Transfer credits reduce the number of credits required for graduation to less than 72 credits taken while matriculated in the Program. The Experimental Program Committee evaluates requests for transfer credit only after students have been accepted into the program.

Applying to the Program

Students are admitted only for the fall semester of each academic year. The application deadline is January 15th of each year for the following fall semester. Applicants are encouraged to submit their materials as early as possible. The admission process is typically completed by April 15th.

To apply to the program, you will need to send materials to both the UNLV Graduate College and to the UNLV Department of Psychology.

To obtain the UNLV Graduate College Application Packet, click here. Requests for application materials can also be obtained via e-mail.

Students interested in being considered for a Graduate Assistantship should file an application by the January 15th deadline. The UNLV Graduate Assistantship Application form (click here for the form) is included in the Graduate College Application Packet.

Material to be Sent DIRECTLY to the UNLV Graduate College:

• A Graduate College Application for Admission form
• An Application for Fellowships and Scholarships (if desired) – Click here.
• An Application for Graduate Assistantship (if desired)
• One official transcript from EACH university/college attended
• An Application fee of $60.00, made payable to “The Board of Regents, UNLV”

Send the above materials along with $60 application fee to:

Graduate College Admissions
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Box 451017
4505 Maryland Parkway
Las Vegas, NV 89154-1017

Material to be Sent to the UNLV Department of Psychology:

• A Department of Psychology Graduate Program Application Form – click here.
• Three letters of recommendation evaluating the student’s potential for doctoral studies. Each letter of recommendation written should include a Psychology Department Letter of Recommendation Form (click here) for each recommender. Original letters and the department form required must be sealed in an envelope addressed to the Psychology Department (link to contact info). The recommenders signature must be written across the back envelope seal. It is best to send all 3 letters of recommendation along with your Psychology Department Graduate Program Application form (link to form).
• One official transcript from EACH university/college attended
• A Letter of Intent describing your research interests, educational and professional goals, faculty whom you might be interested in working with, factors that you would want the admissions committee to consider in evaluating your application that are not evident from other materials, and some background information describing how you became interested in these areas
• Official scores on the verbal and quantitative sections of the Graduate Record Exam (GRE), and the Psychology GRE. For the GRE Testing website, click here. GRE score reporting is cumulative. Current GRE Board policy states that your scores are retained for the 5 testing years following the testing year in which you tested.

When requesting to have your GRE scores sent to UNLV, please use the following GRE Codes:

Institution: 4861 for the University of Nevada-Las Vegas

Department: 2001 for the UNLV Dept. of Psychology

Send the above materials to:

Experimental Admissions Committee
Department of Psychology
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
4505 Maryland Parkway MS 5030
Las Vegas, NV 89154-5030

Student Financing

UNLV strives to provide competitive funding offers with reasonable tuition and fees to doctoral students. Our program attempts to provide funding to all students that request it. The most common source of funding for first and second year graduate students is a Graduate Assistantship. Students in years three and beyond are often funded through Assistantships which involve teaching two sections of introductory psychology or a similar course. Some students are funded on faculty research or service grants. In past years nearly all students that have requested funding have received some form of funding similar to a Graduate Assistantship. For additional information regarding financial aid and other possible sources of funding, click here.

Contact Us

If you have additional questions, you can contact Angeline Garbett-Marcotte in the the Department of Psychology’s Office of Doctoral Studies at (702) 895-0176 or via e-mail (psyunlv@unlv.nevada.edu).

Program Faculty

Daniel N. Allen, Ph.D.
• Neuropsychology
• Schizophrenia
• Substance abuse

Mark H. Ashcraft, Ph.D.
Department Chair
• Mathematical cognition
• Math expertise, math anxiety, and working memory capacity in solving advanced arithmetic
• Federal regulation of human subjects research

Kim Barchard, Ph.D.
• Emotional Intelligence
• Psychopathy
• On-line data collection
• Psychometrics

Douglas P. Ferraro , Ph.D. (Dr. Ferraro will not be accepting new graduate students in Fall 2008).
Director, Experimental Ph.D. Program
• Psychopharmacology
• Forensic psychology
• Behavioral medicine
• Health psychology

David Copeland, Ph.D.
• Text Processing
• Reasoning

Erin E. Hannon, Ph.D.
• Auditory cognition and development
• Music perception
• Enculturation processes

Jefferson W. Kinney, Ph.D.
• Behavioral neuroscience
• Neurobiology of learning and memory
• Alzheimer’s disease
• Schizophrenia
• Mood disorders

Karen Kemtes, Ph.D.
• Cognitive aging
• Language processing and verbal working memory
• Applied language

Robert C. Koettel, Ph.D.
• Human development
• Jung's analytical principle of individuation

Murray Millar, Ph.D.
• Persuasion processes
• Social cognition
• Health behavior

Laurel M. Pritchard, Ph.D.
• Behavioral neuroscience
• Psychopharmacology
• Substance Abuse

Jennifer L. Rennels (formerly Ramsey), Ph.D.
• Origins and Development of Appearance-based Stereotypes (e.g., stereotypes based
on masculinity/femininity, attractiveness, gender, and race)

Edward J. Shoben, Ph.D.
• Categorization
• Judgments of relative magnitude
• Comprehension of noun-noun compounds (e.g., "headache pills")

N. Clayton Silver, Ph.D.
• Statistics
• Measurement
• Warning salience and compliance
• Human factors

Joel S. Snyder, Ph.D.
• Neuroscience
• Auditory perception and cognition
• Aging and schizophrenia
• Event-related brain potentials
• Magnetoencephalography
• Structural MRI