Courses

Clinical psychology is a broad and expanding field. This course will provide students with a broad overview of approaches to treatment and assessment in clinical psychology. These include theoretical orientations and current debates within the field. The course will also provide students with cultural and ethical considerations within the field. Finally, the course will offer many illustrative examples of the application of the provided material.

This seminar course will focus on the
impact of the prenatal period in programming lifelong health and development through
altering physiology starting from the molecular level.

We will start by defining the characteristics of the prenatal period and discuss history
and perspectives related to developmental programming. As our first main theme, we
will continue with discussing the effects of this developmental programming on
lifelong health and developmental outcomes. As the second main theme, we will cover
the physiological mechanisms underlying prenatal programming by focusing on the
changes in the nervous, endocrine and immune systems. As our third main theme, we
will further go into the molecular mechanisms associated with these physiological
changes, including epigenetic mechanisms and their potential intergenerational
transmission. We will end with discussing more recent topics in the field together with
policy implications of the topics discussed during the semester.

By covering these topics, students are expected to gain a better understanding of a) how
our physiology, behavior and health is programmed starting from the prenatal period,
b) the mechanisms of prenatal programming, and c) the impact of prenatal
programming on our perspective on the prenatal environment. With this, the students
are expected to place behavior and health in a lifelong perspective with potential
intergenerational effects.

Psychedelics are receiving growing attention in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience for their therapeutic potential. Psychedelic compounds like psilocybin, LSD, and DMT produce a wide range of changes to perception, ranging from visual perception to alterations in one’s sense of self. When combined with psychological support or psychotherapy, psychedelics have been shown to lead to rapid and long-lasting therapeutic benefits for a wide range of mental health disorders, including major depression and alcohol use disorder. The acute alterations in perception and long-lasting clinical effects offer exciting insight into the relationship between the mind and the brain. This course will focus on the current state of research on the psychological and neurobiological effects of psychedelics. We will begin with a crash-course into the basics of neuroscience and research methodology. Next, the course will delve into how psychedelics alter brain functioning, both acutely during the drug effects as well as long after they have worn off. Studies covered will span molecular, cellular, and systems level analysis. A core element of the course will include reviewing methodological approaches and neuroscientific evidence for psychedelics interventions in the treatment of clinical/psychiatric disorders. We will also review the clinical data and link neurobiological findings to their practical application to move the field of psychedelic science forward. Throughout the course, there will be a specific focus on critical appraisal of research, identifying strengths and limitations surrounding current research, and important avenues for future research. Students should leave the class with an enhanced ability to evaluate research findings and a broad understanding of the mechanisms of action of psychedelics.

The format of the course will include lectures, class discussions and presentations, and guest speakers.

Prerequisites: PSYC 1001 and any PSYC 2400-level neuroscience course or permission of the instructor.

Why do we feel the way we do, how do we understand ourselves and others, and how does this relate to our social relationships?  Why does all of this sometimes leave us feeling anxious, depressed, lonely and isolated?  And when that happens, what we can do about it?  In this seminar, we will tackle these questions using an integrative approach that blends social psychology, clinical psychology and neuroscience to uncover how our emotions and social interactions sometimes work well and sometimes falter.  To do this, we will examine human behavior at multiple levels, connecting our social and emotional lives (what we experience and how we act) to cognitive processes (how our minds process information) and underlying neural mechanisms (what's happening in the brain).  As the semester unfolds, we start by building an understanding of where our emotions come from, how we can manage them, how we make sense of other people and how we can form positive connections with them.  This knowledge provides a foundation for taking the next step - understanding what happens when things go awry and we end up with momentary - or long-lasting - bouts of anxiety, depression, loneliness and other clinical conditions.  We end by considering what may be everyone’s life goal - the pursuit of happiness - and how everything we have learned can foster that pursuit through personal actions, social connections and psychotherapeutic support.  The overarching goal is to build a nuanced understanding of how and why we think and feel the way we do – about ourselves and others – that can inform both scientific and personal explorations of what “wellbeing” and “mental health” means.

Prerequisites

Equivalents of an introductory Psychology course and one more advanced lecture, lab or seminar course in Psychology or a related discipline (and/or the instructor's permission).


This course is meant to provide an introduction to regression and applied statistics for the social sciences, with a strong emphasis on utilizing the Python software language to perform the key tasks in the data analysis workflow. Topics to be covered include various data structures, basic descriptive statistics, regression models, multiple regression analysis, interactions, polynomials, Gauss-Markov assumptions and asymptotics, heteroskedasticity and diagnostics, data visualization, models for binary outcomes, models for ordered data, first difference analysis, factor analysis, and cluster analysis. Through a variety of lab assignments, students will be able to generate and interpret quantitative data in helpful and provocative ways. Only relatively basic mathematics skills are assumed, but some more advanced math will be introduced as needed. A previous introductory statistics course that includes linear regression is helpful, but not required.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI – like ChatGPT, MidJourney, and Gemini – are poised to change the world for everyone. It is critical that students understand (and utilize) this new technology at several levels. In this class – through readings and a dozen hands-on activities – students will come to deeply understand AI. Specifically, students will construct (using Python) some of the basic building-blocks of AI, like machine learning (like recommendation systems), natural language processing (like word embeddings) and chatbots. They will test out AI’s capabilities and refine prompts in real-world settings, whether in art, video, writing or Internet-of-Things. They will learn about how generative AI fits into the history of technology adoption and the diffusion of innovation, answering questions like: Will AI be able to replace whole jobs? And if so, when? They will use the lenses of psychology and economics to explore the impact of AI in people’s lives, including in the context of algorithmic fairness, regulation and intellectual property. They will be pushed to take human creativity in new directions, augmented by AI’s “weirdness.” Lastly, students will be pushed to further develop their own uniquely-human skills – like in critical thinking and empathy – in response to the power of generative AI to mimic humans. As best-selling author Seth Stephen-Davidowitz has recently (Dec. 2023) written, “So far, [my newest book] has higher ratings than either of my previous two books -- even though it was written in 1/36th of the time, thanks to AI. AI is wild!" By the end of this class, students will feel empowered technically and philosophically to handle all new generative AI developments. There are no specific prerequisites for this class.

This course is designed as an introduction to the Islamic religion, both in its pre-modern and modern manifestations. The semester begins with a survey of the central elements that unite a diverse community of Muslim peoples from a variety of geographical and cultural backgrounds. This includes a look at the Prophet and the Qur'an and the ways in which both were actualized in the development of ritual, jurisprudence, theology, and sufism/mysticism. The course then shifts to the modern period, examining the impact of colonization and the rise of liberal secularism on the Muslim world. The tension between traditional Sunni and Shi'i systems of authority and movements for 'modernization' and/or 'reform' feature prominently in these readings. Topics range from intellectual attempts at societal/religious reform (e.g. Islamic Revivalism, Modernism, Progressivism) and political re-interpretations of traditional Islamic motifs (e.g. Third-Worldism and Jihadist discourse) to efforts at accommodating scientific and technological innovations (e.g. evolution, bioethics ). The class ends by examining the efforts of American and European Muslim communities to carve out distinct spheres of identity in the larger global Muslim community ( umma) through expressions of popular culture (e.g. Hip-Hop).

What is the source of truth and authority? What is the origin of the world and how does that determine the social order? Who ought to rule, why, and how? What are the standards for measuring justice and injustice? What is our relationship to the environment around us and how should its resources be distributed among people? How do we relate to those who are different from us, and what does it mean to be a community in the first place? Historically, the answers to these questions that have been described as “religious” and “political” have been the restricted to a specific tradition of Western European Christianity and its secular afterlives. However, these are questions that every society asks, in order to be a society in the first place. This course analyzes how indigenous peoples in the Americas asked and answered these questions through the first three centuries of Western European imperial rule. At the same time, this course pushes students to question what gets categorized as uniquely “indigenous” thought, how, and why.

Using modern, student-centered, active and collaborative learning techniques, students will engage — through field observations, in-class experiments, computer simulations, and selected readings — with a range of ideas and techniques designed to integrate and anchor scientific habits of mind. Throughout the term, all students will satisfy a detailed set of rubrics by documenting their learning in reflection postings designed to serve as a future reference for how they, individually, went from not understanding an idea to understanding it. Topics covered will include statistics, basic probability, a variety of calculational skills, graph reading, and estimation — all aimed at elucidating such concepts as energy, matter, cells, and genes in the context of astronomy, biology, chemistry, earth science, neuroscience, and physics.

Using modern, student-centered, active and collaborative learning techniques, students will engage — through field observations, in-class experiments, computer simulations, and selected readings — with a range of ideas and techniques designed to integrate and anchor scientific habits of mind. Throughout the term, all students will satisfy a detailed set of rubrics by documenting their learning in reflection postings designed to serve as a future reference for how they, individually, went from not understanding an idea to understanding it. Topics covered will include statistics, basic probability, a variety of calculational skills, graph reading, and estimation — all aimed at elucidating such concepts as energy, matter, cells, and genes in the context of astronomy, biology, chemistry, earth science, neuroscience, and physics.