Nancy Hamilton, Ph.D.

My teaching tools and methods are informed by Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy and department educational goals. Irrespective of the particular course, my goals are to foster critical thinking, promote an appreciation of psychology as a science, and guide the process of intellectual discovery. I encourage the pursuit of excellence, but do so within a supportive atmosphere.

Undergraduate Education

The structure of my classes is designed to promote mastery at different levels of cognitive processing. At the junior level, the primary focus is to provide an empirical foundation in the neurosciences and an explanation of the research methodology. At the senior level, the emphasis is on synthesis and integration with an emphasis on methodology and cultural context. Thus, my juniors should be able to tell you what we know and a little about how we know it. Senior level students should be able to tell you about the limitations of what we know and that what we know is culturally bound.

I emphasize analysis and synthesis when supervising my research lab, which includes both graduate and undergraduate students. Currently, I have two honors students, one of whom has received a Psi Chi award that provided funds to support his training. Students in my lab work on projects from project conceptualization to data collection and analysis, describing and interpreting results. By the end of this semester, all of the students in my lab will have been involved in the submission of abstracts to regional and national conferences.

Graduate Education

I believe that the goal of graduate education is to promote intellectual and professional development in the context of an independent research program. Coursework should provide a basic foundation (writing, critical thinking, methodology), that can be harnessed in service of professional development.

Teaching: In the classroom, I focus on critical thinking and skill development. Students are encouraged to work cooperatively, integrating material from multiple sources, sharing and defending ideas. In addition, I have used seminar classes to teach specific statistical methods that are foundational in health psychology research but not taught in other classes in our program. Thus, students should leave my class with a range of intellectual, social, and practical tools that will enable them to work in the field of clinical health psychology.

Mentorship/Advising: At the graduate level, teaching and advising are closely intertwined. I routinely invite students to be coauthors on manuscripts, encourage all of my students to present their research at national conferences and to solicit feedback from experienced researchers in the field. I have served as an advisor, or co advisor for 14 students. Many of these students received support for thesis and dissertation projects (e.g., APA, Division 38; NIH F31 award). All of my graduates are employed in their field, four in tenure track positions at Academic Medical Centers, two in universities. Most have remained research active, with multiple publications, and four have applied for F32s and one received a Fulbright Fellowship. I see mentorship as my strongest teaching skill and my students achievements are consistent with that belief.

Teaching Interests

• Health Psychology
• Behavioral Neuroscience