Why Iowa?

Iowa has been at the forefront of psychological research and training for a century, and we still lead today. Our students learn about the field in the classroom and laboratory, and out in the community, developing skills that help them stand out among their peers.

Undergraduate Programs

Graduate Programs

Faculty

Profiles and Research

The department's commitment to research excellence is matched by a commitment to providing outstanding research and professional training for undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs.

Research in the News

The New Yorker: What are dreams for?

Mark Blumberg, chair of the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Iowa, discusses his research into the connections among REM sleep, twitches, and dreams in The New Yorker.

Jdoie

Self Driving Cars & Crosswalks

NSF News Video

With an estimated 3.5 million self-driving vehicles expected on America’s roads by next year, University of Iowa researchers are investigating how to make crossing the road safe, especially for children. 

Cathleen Moore

CLAS PBS professor receives NIH grant

Cathleen Moore, professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Starch Faculty Fellow, received a grant from the National Institutes of Health for $413,267 to study how lifeguard training can be improved using virtual reality. 

Bruce Bartholow

CLAS psychology professor awarded two NIH grants totaling $7.3 million

Professor Bruce Bartholow, who joined the University of Iowa over the summer, has two upcoming research projects funded by significant grants from the National Institutes of Health.

Assistant professors McCleery and Baran stand in front of PIER Program poster

PBS faculty provide psychosis intervention series to UI students, community through research project

Professors Amanda McCleery and Bengi Baran launched a program to help people in the University of Iowa community who are experiencing negative mental health symptoms.  

News and Announcements

Tranel receives 2024 Distinguished Mentor Award

Thursday, September 26, 2024
For more than four decades, Dan Tranel, the F. Wendell Miller Professor in Psychology and Brain Sciences, has been instrumental in growing neuroscience at Iowa and beyond. He leads the Iowa Neurological Patient Registry, one of the largest research repositories of its kind and a unique resource used by neuroscientists around the world, and he has nurtured the careers of hundreds of young neuroscientists.

Iowa researchers identify approaches for how people recognize words

Tuesday, September 3, 2024
University of Iowa researchers have defined how people recognize words. In a new study with people who use cochlear implants to hear, the researchers identified three main approaches that people with or without hearing impairment use to recognize words, an essential building block for understanding spoken language.

Upcoming Events

Psychological and Brain Sciences Spence Lecture: Elizabeth Buffalo, University of Washington promotional image

Psychological and Brain Sciences Spence Lecture: Elizabeth Buffalo, University of Washington

Friday, October 18, 2024 3:30pm
Psychological and Brain Sciences Building
Psychological and Brain Sciences Spence Lecture Elizabeth Buffalo, Wayne E Crill Endowed Professor, Department of Neurobiology and Biophysics, University of Washington School of Medicine Towards a Unified View of the Primate Hippocampus Our understanding of the hippocampus has been framed by two landmark discoveries: the discovery by Scoville and Milner that hippocampal damage causes profound and persistent amnesia and the discovery by O'Keefe and Dostrovsky of hippocampal place cells in rodents...
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Faculty Elected AAAS Fellows

$11M+

in Annual research Funding

130+

undergraduates doing research in our labs

1500+

Undergraduate majors in psychology and neuroscience

80+

doctoral students in psychology and neuroscience