Application materials can be obtained by download at http://www.grad.uconn.edu" or by writing to:

Graduate Admissions Office
436 Whitney Road Extension, Unit 1006A
University of Connecticut
Storrs, CT
06269-1006

The application requires transcripts, official Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores, a personal letter, and three letters of recommendation. Applications should be received by January 15 in order to be considered for financial support.

To arrange a visit to CESPA contact the Director, Dr. Claudia Carello:

Email: claudia.carello@uconn.edu
Phone: (860) 486 2078

Download informational brochures in .pdf format (requires adobe acrobat reader):

Ecological Psychology Program Brochure
Experimental Psychology Program Brochure

Students pursue a program of study that will provide them with the intellectual and technical skills demanded by problems in Ecological Psychology.

Courses include Ecological and Computational Theories of Perception, Control and Coordination of Movement, Ecology of Language, Social Affordances, Mathematics and Physics for Ecological Psychology, Nonlinear Dynamics for the Behavioral Sciences I and II, and Evolution and Development. (Even the technical courses are within the Department of Psychology, application to perceiving and acting is the organizing theme.) Firm footing in the computational perspective is provided by courses in Sensory Mechanisms, Cognitive Systems Theory, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Connectionism. Two basic courses in statistical methods are required and may be augmented by courses in Causal Modeling or Measurement and Scaling. Depending on a particular student's interests, courses outside of Psychology are commonly taken and have included biomechanics, computer graphics, embryology, evolutionary biology, neurobiology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of language, philosophy of physics, nonlinear dynamics, differential equations, and tensor calculus.

Perceiving-Acting Workshop is a weekly research seminar in which faculty, graduate students, and visiting scholars present and discuss current projects. Visitors include physicists, philosophers, mathematicians, and movement scientists in addition to psychologists. Friday Afternoon Club is a forum for theoretical discussions organized around a single topic in any given semester. Topics have included neural networks, qualitative dynamics, morphogenesis, infant perception, ecological human factors, perceptual learning, animal behavior and microbial evolution. Special topic workshops (e.g., Human and Robot Juggling, Symbols and Dynamics, Serial Order, Physics of Complexity) are held periodically, drawing on scholars from a variety of universities.

Teaching is an important part of graduate training. Teaching assistants participate in an eight hour orientation before they get in front of a classroom. For senior graduate students, a formal course in teaching (with an emphasis on the challenges of teaching experimental psychology) is offered by Michael Turvey, award-winning teacher and world-renowned lecturer. Students' assigned lectures, ranging from Introductory Psychology classes to conference presentations and job talks, are critiqued for organization, clarity, and style as well as content. Many survivors of this course have gone on to become award-winning teachers in their own right.

Students admitted to the program are provided with generous financial support for 12 months. This support is drawn from a combination of teaching, research, and fellowship monies and is augmented by a tuition waiver and health benefits. Students can expect to be supported for 5 years, with annual increases reflecting their progress through the program. A special effort is made to support student travel to international conferences to present research and make professional contacts. Applicants with relevant research experience are also encouraged to coordinate with a potential faculty advisor in order to apply for fellowships from agencies such as the National Science Foundation.

The social interaction at CESPA deserves special mention. Friday evening gatherings of faculty and students are a decades-long tradition. Politics, art, and sports can often be heard among discussions of realism, nonHausdorffian spaces, and the individuation of affordances. All this takes place at Sweet William's, the official CESPA pub, which is also host to monthly parties in honor of visiting speakers.