Principal Duties
The Department of Psychological Sciences in the College of Health and Human Sciences at Purdue University invites applications for a tenure-track position at the rank of Assistant Professor. The successful candidate will be expected to build an innovative, high-impact research program with the potential for extramural funding, direct graduate student research, and teach undergraduate and graduate courses. We are seeking candidates who are well-positioned to make significant contributions to one or more of our existing graduate training programs in Social Psychology, Neuroscience and Behavior, or Industrial-Organizational Psychology. Preference will be given to candidates whose research programs have strong potential for societal impact and contribute to one or more of Purdue University’s strategic initiatives, including One Health. Successful candidates would also have an opportunity to participate in the department’s graduate certification program in advanced psychological statistics and methodologies.
Qualifications
Applicants should have completed a Ph.D. in Psychology or a related field by Fall 2026, have a strong publication record, a record of teaching and mentoring excellence, and a record of working collegially and respectfully with a range of colleagues and students. We are particularly interested in scholars with a high likelihood of obtaining external funding (grants, foundation support, or industry partnerships), and who will advance the University’s land-grant mission to improve the lives of Indiana residents and beyond.
The Department
The Department of Psychological Sciences (hhs.purdue.edu/psy/) is consistently ranked among the top psychology programs in the world. The Department is collegial and diverse, composed of over 50 tenured/tenure-track, clinical, and research faculty, over 70 graduate students, and over 1000 undergraduate student majors. Research and doctoral training are conducted in the areas of Clinical Psychology (APA and PCSAS-accredited), Cognitive Psychology, I-O Psychology, Mathematical and Computational Psychology, Neuroscience and Behavior, and Social Psychology. Faculty in Psychological Sciences are also involved in a wide range of cross-campus initiatives, including Advanced Methods at Purdue (www.purdue.edu/amap/), Center for Research on Brain, Behavior, and NeuroRehabilitation (CEREBBRAL; www.purdue.edu/hhs/cerebbral/), Purdue Autism Research Center (hhs.purdue.edu/autism/), and Purdue Institute for Integrative Neuroscience (www.purdue.edu/discoverypark/institute-for-integrative-neuroscience/). Faculty regularly lead and collaborate on funded grants within psychology and across disciplines (e.g., Industrial Engineering, Computer Science). Opportunities also exist for partnering with the HHS Extension office, which offers programs to enhance the well-being of individuals, families and communities in each of Indiana’s 92 counties.
Programs
Social Psychology: Purdue has one of the world’s leading training programs in social psychology. Faculty in the program are world-renowned experts in the core areas of social psychology including (1) prejudice and discrimination, (2) intergroup and group processes, (3) close relationships, and (4) self and identity, as well as a commitment to methodological rigor and best practices. Within the social psychology program, faculty also have research interests in several cross-disciplinary topics, including diversity and inclusion, individual differences, and maladaptive behavior and social relationships. Social psychology faculty who study diversity and inclusion focus on a broad range of topics, from stereotyping and prejudice to gender issues and beyond. Faculty in the program who focus on individual differences study the rewards and challenges of close relationships, differences in person-thing orientation, and self-presentation in interpersonal relationships. Maladaptive behavior research spans issues from interpersonal violence to discrimination. Finally, because social relationships play such an important role in social psychology, research on this topic explores a wide range of issues related to how individuals interact with each other and the social processes at play.
Neuroscience and Behavior: Faculty in the Neuroscience and Behavior area research a variety of animal and human behavior models to study brain-behavior relationships using state-of-the art techniques and technologies. Problems studied by the neuroscience and behavior area include molecular and genetic determinants of behavior, physiological bases of motivated behaviors, neural and hormonal bases of learning and memory, physiological and genetic bases of psychiatric disorders, and the underlying neural mechanisms of cognitive processing and social interaction. The current faculty have ongoing research interests in cognition, including associative learning, reward processing, decision-making, selective attention, and problem solving, as well as clinical phenomena, including alcohol use disorder, Alzheimer’s disease, eating disorders and obesity, depression, anxiety, Parkinson’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, and autism spectrum and attention deficit disorders. In addition to cognitive and clinical neuroscientists, the area also welcomes social neuroscientist applicants. Multiple faculty in this area frequently use the Purdue MRI Facility (https://www.purdue.edu/mri/), which houses three research-dedicated MRI systems.
Industrial-Organizational Psychology: Purdue conferred its first degree in I-O Psychology in 1939. It is one of the oldest programs and is counted among the highest-ranked I-O programs in the world (tinyurl.com/purdueio). The program has graduated more PhD students and produced more SIOP Fellows than any other I-O program and receives strong support from alumni. The current I-O faculty have a wide range of research interests, many of which center around the psychological experiences of people at work, well-being, and advanced quantitative and/or data-intensive approaches to these topics. The program attracts top graduate students from around the world. Our group has ongoing collaborations with the OBHR program at Purdue’s Daniels School of Management and with other areas within the Department of Psychological Sciences (Cognitive Psychology and Social Psychology).
The College
The Department of Psychological Sciences is the largest Department in the College of Health and Human Sciences (hhs.purdue.edu), one of the largest colleges at Purdue. The College brings together scholars in the health sciences and human sciences to strategically address issues vital to enhancing people’s health and quality of life and understanding human behavior. The College provides a multidisciplinary learning environment that uniquely prepares students to contribute to improved human health and behavior and to serve as leaders in their disciplines. The College also provides a rich environment for world-changing research and discovery and the translation of these discoveries from theory to application, benefiting not only those in Indiana, but society as a whole. The College of Health and Human Sciences and the Department of Psychological Sciences are committed to community success. Our leadership, faculty, staff, and students are engaged in many efforts that are consistent with that commitment.
Purdue University
Established in 1869, Purdue is Indiana’s land-grant university, a comprehensive educational and research institution and member of the American Association of Universities (AAU) and the Equity in Graduate Education Consortium. Purdue is recognized as a Top 10 public university by QS world rankings and is the #10 most recognized university globally by American Caldwell. In addition to the College of Health and Human Sciences, Purdue University’s strengths in Agriculture, Education, Engineering, Liberal Arts, Management, Pharmacy, Science, and Veterinary Medicine contribute to a robust research and educational environment. The West Lafayette campus, located one hour north of Indianapolis and two hours south of downtown Chicago, has ten academic colleges with an enrollment of 52,211 students from over 135 countries. The greater Lafayette/West Lafayette community (www.homeofpurdue.com) has a population of approximately 225,000 and a low cost of living.
Application Procedure
Applications must include: (1) a cover letter of interest; (2) curriculum vitae; (3) three peer-reviewed articles; (4) a research statement; and (5) a teaching statement. Letters of recommendation will be requested later if the applicant is short-listed. Interested candidates must apply here: https://careers.purdue.edu/job-invite/31958/
Screening of applicants will begin immediately after November 10, 2025 and continue until the position is filled. A background check is required for employment in this position. Questions regarding the position may be sent to Dr. Dan Foti, Chair of the Search Committee (foti@purdue.edu)
Equal Opportunity
Purdue University is an equal opportunity/equal access university.