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Welcome to the School of Psychology at Georgia Tech

The School of Psychology at Georgia Tech is a multidisciplinary academic unit. The research and educational programs of the School help study what makes us human and mechanistically describe the dynamic human experience. We achieve this by bringing experts from complementary disciplines together to innovate at the intersection of disciplines that study the brain, behavior, technology, and people & society.  

As you roam our webpage, you’ll notice that psychology at GaTech is rather unique in a number of ways. You already know that we are embedded in one of the world's leading science and engineering institutions of higher education. Unlike many of our peers, our home college is the College of Sciences, which also houses the likes of Chemistry, Physics, Biology, and Math. You’ll see we have a structure of 5 programs which include Adult Development and Aging, Cognition and Brain Science,  Engineering, Industrial-Organizational, and Quantitative Psychology help us manage the research efforts and provide focused training to our graduate students, but all of the faculty move easily between areas. Finally, you may notice that we are small, intentionally. It allows us to focus our research and our training in a way that has made us exceptional.

The Faculty, Grad Students, Undergraduates, and Staff are eager to meet you.

Graduate Student Application

Latest News

A group of individuals standing on the stairs.
The College of Sciences’ community came together to celebrate the inaugural Distinguished Alumni Awards, recognizing the diverse achievements and inspiring journeys of eight alumni.
Researchers across Georgia Tech are joining forces to explore the brain — advancing science, technology, and society through interdisciplinary collaboration.
Neuroscience at Georgia Tech is entering a new era — one defined by interdisciplinary research, educational innovation, and real-world impact.
Dean Lozier congratulates a newly minted College of Sciences alum.
Sciences is the first Georgia Tech College to reach its target, exceeding a $75 million campaign goal.
A view of Tech Tower from Crosland Tower. Photo: Georgia Tech
Georgia Tech continues its upward trajectory in the latest U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges 2026 rankings. Among top public national universities, Georgia Tech held steady at No. 9, and it achieved No. 1 rankings across several categories.
Graphic Representation of networked system: Adobe Stock
Nexus is Georgia Tech’s next-generation supercomputer, replacing the HIVE.

Events

Oct
17
2025

Join the Spatial Ecology and Paleontology Lab for Fossil Fridays! Become a fossil hunter and help discover how vertebrate communities have changed through time.

Oct
23
2025

Are you interested in cognitive neuroscience? Come to the trainee social event from 2:30-3:30 at the Center for Advanced Brain Imaging (CABI) to meet with students and post docs who are studying cog neuro!

Oct
24
2025

Join the Spatial Ecology and Paleontology Lab for Fossil Fridays! Become a fossil hunter and help discover how vertebrate communities have changed through time.

Oct
25
2025

Celebrate Georgia Tech Homecoming 2025 and cheer on the Yellow Jackets with the College of Sciences.

Oct
27
2025

"At-a-Glance Language Processing as a Window to the Brain’s Inherent Temporal Dynamics" – Liina Pylkkanen, NYU

We Are Hiring

The School of Psychology invites nominations and applications for a open-rank, non-tenure-track Academic Professional position with an anticipated start date of August 2026.

This is a full-time position in the Academic Professional faculty career track with provision for promotion in rank. The position may be filled at the Associate/Academic/Senior or Principal Academic Professional rank. Per Georgia Tech policy, these roles focus on core academic assignments such as academic program management, curriculum development, teaching and student advising. The position is ideal for a candidate passionate about applying their expertise to enhance our program and improve student outcomes. The anticipated start date is August 2026.

Experts in the News

One of the most popular pop psychology concepts to take hold in recent years is that of the “growth mindset.” The belief that you can improve your mental powers (grow your brain) can be a powerful tool in helping you actually achieve the success you desire. The converse mindset, or “fixed,” keeps you tied so heavily to the idea that you need to perform well that you fear doing anything that could jeopardize a favorable outcome. But what if your mindset doesn’t really matter? What if the idea is just an oversimplification, as so many pop psychology concepts are? Alexander Burgoyne, postdoctoral researcher in the School of Psychology, co-authored research on 63 studies of growth mindsets showing that there was "no support for meaningful changes in motivation and behavior." Also, many of the studies showed inadequate study design, reporting flaws, and bias. 

Psychology Today

One of those signs involves being a bit absent-minded, but don't worry. If you’re a deep thinker, you’ll always be lost in your thoughts. Your brain is always busy imagining scenarios and solving problems big and small. This story points to a 2017 Georgia Tech-led study showing that daydreaming may be a sign of a creative, intelligent person. Eric Schumacher, professor in the School of Psychology, and then-Ph.D. scholar Christine Godwin were co-authors of that study.

Hack Spirit

Sonification — turning data into sound — and data accessibility were recurring themes at the January 2023 meeting of the American Astronomical Society.  Sonic representations of light echoing off hot gas around a black hole, sonifications designed to make solar eclipses accessible to the blind and visually impaired (BVI) community, and a proposal to incorporate sonification into astronomical data collected by the $600 million Rubin Observatory in Chile, were just three examples. The meeting was a microcosm of a bigger trend in science accessibility. “Astronomy is a leading field in sonification, but there’s no reason that work couldn’t be generalized,” says one astronomer. Bruce Walker, professor in the School of Psychology who runs the Georgia Tech Sonification Lab, is quoted in the article. 

MIT Technology Review

Technically speaking, there is no noise in deep space. A lack of molecules means there is no medium through which sound waves can travel. Essentially, most of the universe is a giant, near-perfect vacuum. But hot turbulent gas in stars produce internal and surface waves which can be picked up by telescopes. Space telescopes also measure wavelengths of light and send that data back to Earth. Sonification allows the astronomical data transmitted by telescopes to then be turned into sound. Sonification is not only creating greater opportunities for scientific inclusion, but helping astronomers to fine-tune their celestial observations. "The auditory system is a fantastic pattern recognition device. We accomplish speech by listening to changes in a person's voice over time. We can use the same capabilities to listen for changes in a dataset," says Bruce Walker, professor in the School of Psychology and the School of Interactive Computing, and director of Georgia Tech's Sonification Lab

Australian Broadcasting Company

Understanding the universe isn't just about visually mapping celestial bodies, it's also about listening to the heavens. Data sonification takes astronomical data and turns it into sound. It could help find new patterns in the huge amount of digital information. And it's a way of enhancing astronomy by promoting greater engagement and accessibility — a musical mix of science, art and cold, hard data. Bruce Walker, professor in the School of Psychology and the School of Interactive Computing, and director of Georgia Tech's Sonification Lab, joins a panel of scientists for an April 15 program on what sonification can add to astronomy. 

Australian Broadcasting Corporation Radio National