Northern Illinois University
Department of Psychology
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

In addition to the formal course requirements, students are expected to become involved in research early and to maintain this involvement throughout their training. Research experiences include the readings course, apprenticeship, and Research Methods course in Year 1, research assistantships, independent study with faculty members, attendance at group research meetings, the master's thesis, and the doctoral dissertation.

Students are encouraged to present the results of their research at regional and national conferences and to submit their work for publication in peer reviewed journals. Depending on student and faculty interests, students may be involved in research with both clinical and non-clinical faculty members. Additional information on research training and requirements can be found in the sections on the MA thesis, research tool requirement, and doctoral dissertation above.

Faculty Research Interests

Research interests of the faculty include:

• Trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder
• Anxiety disorders
• Family violence and child abuse
• Developmental psychopathology
• Parent-child Relationships
• Adult perceptions of children's behavior problems
• Risk and resilience
• Emotion regulation and temperament

The clinical area offers a focus in child clinical-developmental psychopathology for students with strong research and/or clinical interests in child development and developmental psychopathology. Students interested in this area receive broad training in theory and research in both clinical and developmental psychology. Applied work with children, in both clinical and school settings, is also available.

Students with a child clinical-developmental psychopathology focus can prepare themselves for academic careers in clinical psychology, for careers in clinical work with child and adolescent populations, as well as for careers in developmental psychology (interested applicants can also obtain more detailed information on the developmental curricular area of study by contacting the department). Prospective students who are interested in a child clinical-developmental psychopathology focus should mention this on their applications.