Application Guidelines for Prospective
Graduate Students
1 Am I a good fit for the
Psychological and Brain Sciences Ph.D. Program at the University of
Iowa?
The Psychological and Brain Sciences Ph.D. Program at the University
of Iowa is a research-focused
training program. Thus, our program is best aligned with careers in
which research will be a key component. We look to admit and train
graduate students who have research-oriented career goals. If you have
career goals of being a clinician, our program would not be a good fit
for you; you would not be happy here.
Given our research-focused training, applicants will be most
competitive if they have strong research experiences. What will make you
most competitive for our program is having lots of high-quality research
experience and showing evidence of capabilities to conduct independent
research. You will want to show evidence of independent research
experiences, such as an Honors project, senior thesis, independent
research project, first-authored publications in strong peer-reviewed
journals, first-authored posters or presentations at strong national or
international conferences, and grant/fellowship submissions—these are
just examples (you are not expected to have all of these!).
2 What graduate training
tracks should I apply to in order to join the Developmental
Psychopathology Lab?
Prospective graduate students interested in joining the lab can apply
to any of the graduate training
tracks of the Department:
The Individualized
Graduate Training track is an exciting training opportunity for
students. The Individualized
track provides students considerable flexibility in their graduate
training curriculum. The Individualized
track allows the student, in conjunction with their research
committee, to custom-tailor their graduate training to meet their
training goals. Moreover, the Individualized
track provides students more time for research than the Clinical
Science track, because the Individualized
track does not have clinical training requirements and has less
coursework burden than the Clinical
Science track. In addition, the program generally receives more
applications to the Clinical
Science track than to the Individualized
track (or to other tracks). Thus, a person may be more likely to be
admitted if they apply to the Individualized
track or to another non-Clinical Science track. However, regardless
of the track(s) to which you apply, your application should clearly
demonstrate the fit of your interests and experiences with the track(s)
to which you apply.
In addition to a training track, students are welcome to join one of
various departmental research groups. Research groups provide
individualized, interdisciplinary, and student-centered research
training in that domain. Dr. Petersen is a member of the following research groups:
3 Criteria used for
evaluation of graduate applications
Your application will be reviewed closely by me and by the relevant
training track. So you have a sense of how graduate applications are
evaluated, here are the criteria that I consider most strongly when
evaluating applicants for graduate school and my lab:
fit of career goals with the mission of the program and the relevant
training track
i.e., career goals in research
evidence of high-quality, independent research experience
e.g., Honors project, senior thesis, independent research project,
first-authored publications in strong peer-reviewed journals,
first-authored posters or presentations at strong national or
international conferences, and grant/fellowship submissions—these are
just examples (you are not expected to have all of these!)
In addition, successful applicants to my lab tend to have at least
two years of research experience and to be involved in research when
applying.
4 The current focus of
the Developmental Psychopathology Lab
The broader mission of the Developmental Psychopathology Lab is to
advance understanding of how self-regulation develops so that we as a
society can better treat or even prevent the development of
externalizing problems. That is, we are interested in identifiying
mechanisms in the development of self-regulation and
externalizing problems.
To this aim, the focal project of the lab’s work is an ongoing
NIH-funded longitudinal study, the School Readiness Study, that
follows children from 3–7 years of age to better understand how
self-regulation and externalizing problems develop, from a
bio-psycho-social perspective. In this project, we place special
emphasis on the development of neural functioning, as measured by
EEG/ERP, and how neural development influences the development of
children’s self-regulation and externalizing problems. For more
information on the study, you are encouraged to read papers from the
project, view the available measures, examine the Data Dictionary, and
see the pre-registered hypotheses. These resources are available on the
project page for the School
Readiness Study.
Identifying mechanisms in the long-term development of externalizing
problems requires strong assessment. Thus, my lab is also highly
interested in psychometrics and measure development. In addition to the
ongoing School Readiness
Study, we are also in the process of designing and conducting
another study, the Externalizing
Assessment Project. Externalizing problems change in behavioral
manifestation across development. In this project, we aim to develop a
novel assessment system to assess the externalizing spectrum in
comparable and developmentally sensitive ways across the lifespan, so
that we can identify children early on who are at risk of later, more
severe problems.
Although the mechanisms we identify are relevant for intervention, my
lab does not conduct research on interventions.
5 Am I a good fit for the
Developmental Psychopathology Lab?
Our program does not look for “mini-me”s whose interests are exactly
the same as ours; at the same time, we do look for a core fit of
research interests with the direction of the prospective lab(s) (which
are described above). For instance, if your
primary research interests are in any of the following domains, my lab
would not be a good fit for your interests:
depression/anxiety
autism
psychosis/schizophrenia
trauma
treatment/intervention
Different labs have different structures. In some labs, graduate
students conduct separate independent research projects. My lab has a
different structure. We are conducting a large longitudinal project
funded by the National Institutes of Health. Work of this scope takes a
village. Thus, my lab’s structure is “all hands on deck”—everyone
(including research assistants, graduate students, lab staff, and me)
contributes to the same large project. This leads to a highly
collaborative environment in which we can be more productive together.
Within the broader umbrella of our large longitudinal study, graduate
students carve out their unique niche. Graduate students in my lab lead
projects that are part of the broader study. As a result, to be a good
fit for my lab, it is important that your interests align with our
current study and work. In general, I look for graduate students (a) who
will “hit the ground running” in my lab, in terms of data analysis and
writing papers, (b) whose interests closely align with the lab’s current
study and focus (as described above), and
(c) who will not only meet, but will exceed the lab expectations for graduate
students.
6 What to do before
applying
Before applying, I encourage you to:
Read some of our publications
to gain a sense of the type of work we do. Especially relevant are the
publications from our current studies.
Contact Dr. Petersen by email at isaac-t-petersen@uiowa.edu for more information about
the lab; express your interests and send your CV to see if the lab would
be a good fit for your interests.
7 What to do when
applying
To make your application as strong as possible, I encourage you
to:
Make sure your application—including your CV, professional
statement, letters of recommendation, coursework, experiences, writing
sample, etc.—addresses the above criteria used for evaluation of
applications.
Include a writing sample in your application (separate from your
professional statement). It is preferable for the writing sample to be
an example of scientific writing (e.g., APA-style manuscript), and for
you to be the sole- or lead-author.
If there are weaknesses in your application (e.g., a period of poor
grades, dropping out from a program) or things that merit explanation
(e.g., if you are looking to switch programs/mentors), it is helpful for
you to address them in your professional statement and to have your
(relevant) letter writers address them in their letter.
8 What to include in the
Professional Statement as part of the application
I find it helpful when applicants include the following in their
professional statements1:
A clear statement of your general research interests and how they
relate to our lab’s mission and work
A clear statement of why you are interested in this lab, in
particular, versus other labs that study the development of
self-regulation and externalizing problems
A statement about your career goals (even if they are
approximate/might change, it is helpful to see your thinking!),
including the activities and context(s) of interest
Discussions of your independent research experience(s) and what you
learned from them. In these discussions, I suggest emphasizing (1) the
skills you developed from working on each project (e.g., data
collection; behavioral coding; statistical analysis; computer
programming; neural or biopsychology methods such as EEG/ERP; software
such as R, REDCap, MATLAB, E-Prime, and Datavyu; writing certain
sections of a paper; submitting/presenting a poster), and (2) what your
“takeaways” were from the project—e.g., new research ideas or questions
your work inspired.
