Course overview

The PhD program in Psychology will ensure high-level scientific training in experimental and clinical research in the following areas:

(i) experimental psychology and neuroscience;
(ii) developmental psychology and psychopathology;
(iii) work and organizational psychology;
(iv) clinical psychology.

The course aims to train experts in qualitative and quantitative methods for designing and analyzing experimental, observational, and semi-experimental studies in psychology, cognitive sciences, psychiatry, and neuroscience. These studies include the identification of environmental risk factors predisposing to mental illness, the evaluation of the effectiveness of treatments, community trials, and prevention and health education interventions, and the exploration of cognitive processes and complex behaviours from a historical perspective and thanks to the employment of innovative techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and neuromodulation techniques. The PhD program will provide interdisciplinary training with a strong orientation towards internationalization. The level of training offered will be competitive for speculative, observational, and experimental research, as well as for applied/translational research in preventing, diagnosing, and treating mental illness. The course will provide a solid knowledge of research methodology and statistical analysis applied to psychology and biomedical sciences data.