Kathryn C. Oleson

Kathryn C. Oleson, PhD, joined the Reed faculty in 1995. She currently serves as Dean of the Faculty, and is a Professor of Psychology and former Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning. She was a National Institute of Mental Health Postdoctoral Fellow at The Ohio State University from 1993-1995 after finishing her Ph.D. in Social Psychology at Princeton University funded by a National Science Foundation graduate fellowship. She has been Associate Editor of the journal Basic and Applied Social Psychology and co-editor (with Robert Arkin and Patrick Carroll) of the Handbook of the Uncertain Self. Much of her research has examined the reactions of the social self in challenging academic contexts, concentrating on self-doubt, achievement goals, academic procrastination, and behavioral strategies. Currently, her primary research project is exploring ways to make the college classroom more inclusive, with a particular focus on productive and unproductive discomfort. She teaches a range of courses including Introduction to Psychology, Research Design and Data Analysis, Social Psychology, Interpersonal Perception, Stereotyping and Prejudice, and The Social Self. She seeks to actively involve students in the learning process and to help them develop important skills in writing, research, and critical thinking; in her courses students are engaged with research design and implementation that involves the collection and analysis of new data.