Prospective Clinical Psychology PhD Applicants

Working with me in the UB Clinical Psychology PhD Program Clinical Psychology Ph.D. students in our program are required to complete three independent research projects, a Second Year Preliminary Project, a Third Year Project, and a dissertation. In addition to these endeavors, graduate students working with me also will have opportunities to collaborate with me on other publication opportunities with data from my lab.

Graduate students in my lab typically leave for internship with between 5 and 8 in press or published papers, and at least two of these are first authored. I also encourage my students to apply for external funding to support their research. This may include NRSA (F31) funding from NIH, or other funding from private foundations, the State University of New York, or UB. Our Clinical Ph.D. program is quantitatively strong, and my graduate students receive excellent training in a variety of approaches to data analysis.

My lab is a productive, fun, and vibrant. I try to recruit graduate students who are interested in careers in academic or applied research settings. To adequately prepare them for this kind of career, I work with students throughout their time in our program to be sure that they will get the training and experiences that they will need for future success. When they join my lab, graduate students immediately become involved in ongoing projects in the lab. They also attend weekly lab meetings with our research team, and bi-weekly grad student meetings. I also have regular individual meetings with my graduate students.

Working in the alcohol research lab was critical for my development as an academic. In this lab, I realized how much passion and respect I had for scientific research which, in a time of great uncertainty, had ultimately shaped and refined my career path. Being very hands-on the with projects and learning more about contemporary research through article reviews is an amazing experience. It had inspired and invigorated me, completely renewing the sense of curiosity and enthusiasm that I, and many others, had lost after dealing with burnout. You learn so much in the lab, and you have an extremely supportive and knowledgeable foundation of colleagues who will become invaluable in your pursuit of academic goals. Highly recommend this experience to anyone interested in pursuing graduate education in research.

Erim Buyuk –Lab Manager, Senior, Psychology Major; Neuroscience Minor

Current Directions in the Lab

• Intersection of trauma and posttraumatic stress and substance use
• Interventions for alcohol-involved sexual violence
• The social context of alcohol and violence risk
• Environmental influences on alcohol urge and drinking
• Using geospatial methods to assess environmental drinking cues
• Emotion regulation in response to emotion – including PTSD-related emotion

Graduate school applicants who are considering applying to work in our lab should share these interests.