About

Faculty in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Boston College synergistically blend behavioral neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, and psychological science approaches to address questions at the core of the human experience. As psychologists and neuroscientists, we seek to understand basic functions such as memory, emotion, visual perception, social interaction, development and learning, and problem solving and creativity, and to shed light on how these functions are altered in psychopathology, developmental disorders, or neurological disorders. Faculty in our department approach these topics from multiple, converging levels, using assessments of individual behavior, dynamic group interactions, and investigations of the neural processes and computations that give rise to behavior.

Our curriculum embodies the philosophy of Boston College’s liberal arts education, providing students the opportunity for intellectual growth and a deeper understanding of the human condition. Students become critical thinkers as they read cutting-edge research and reflect on topics that are at the core of the human experience: how context influences everything from what we see to how we behave toward others; which aspects of behavior are easily controlled and which proceed without conscious awareness; which aspects of behavior and thought are universal and which are culturally and socially determined; how we learn through our experiences; how brain cells give rise to thought and behavior.

Students learn to critically read and integrate research in psychology and neuroscience, and they also have ample opportunities to conduct research themselves, working in one of our many world-class labs. In our research laboratories, students can learn how many different methods—from the study of networks of brain cells to the study of eye gaze in infants—can be used to understand the mechanisms that give rise to human behavior.