Current Psychology Faculty & Staff
John D. Murray, Ph.D.
University of California, 1989
Professor, Chair of Psychology
jmurray@georgiasouthern.edu
Dr. John Murray's Webpage
John Murray earned a BA in psychology from Purdue University in 1984 and completed a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1989. He then spent two years as a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he began a program of research in issues related to reading comprehension. He spent the next two years as a visiting assistant professor at the University of Florida, Gainesville, where he taught courses in Introductory Psychology and Cognitive Psychology. Dr. Murray came to Georgia Southern in 1993. He teaches courses in Introductory Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Research Methods, and Senior Research. He maintains an active research laboratory where he focuses on topics related to reading comprehension, metacognition in reading, social cognition, and applications of cognitive psychology to business settings (e.g. data mining). Dr. Murray works with both graduate and undergraduate students and welcomes the participation of undergraduates in his laboratory. Usually two or three students work in his lab every semester, including summers.
Research and Scholarly Interests
- Cognitive psychology
- Psychology of language
- Text processing
Courses
- Research Methods
- Research Experience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Directed Research
- Directed Study
- Experimental Cognitive Psychology
- Advanced Cognitive Psychology
- Development of Original Research
- Advanced Directed Study
Janie H. Wilson, Ph.D.
University of South Carolina, 1994
Professor
jhwilson@georgiasouthern.edu
Dr. Wilson's webpage
Janie Wilson began teaching during graduate school and continued in a full-time teaching position at Columbia College before receiving her Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the University of South Carolina in 1994. Since that time, she has been teaching and conducting research at Georgia Southern University. Her teaching includes courses in physiological psychology, large sections of introductory psychology, research methods, and statistics. She recently published Essential Statistics with Prentice Hall, and she wrote the student workbook and instructor's manual to accompany the text. These materials cover analyses from z-testing to the two-way, between-groups ANOVA and multiple linear regression as well as SPSS screen captures and APA-style results sections. Her teaching and research merged when she was awarded an NSF grant as principal investigator for a physiological teaching laboratory, and a recent grant from NIMH continues to fund her research program. She works with both undergraduates and graduate students in the laboratory. The projects involve social buffering of stress responses in rats and human adults and children. Dr. Wilson also conducts research on student evaluations of instructor immediacy and the use of this data to predict students' attitudes, motivation, and grades. She was honored with the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Award for Excellence in 1997, the Award of Distinction in Teaching in 2003, and the Georgia Southern Award for Excellence in Contributions to Instruction in the fall of 2004.
Research and Scholarly Interests
- Neuropsychology
- Rat models of stress and relief
- Professor immediacy
Courses
- Introduction to Psychology
- Careers in Psychology
- Substance Abuse
- Statistics for Psychology
- Research Methods
- Research Experience
- Directed Research
- Directed Study
- Physiological Psychology
- Development of Original Research
- Advanced Directed Study
William D. McIntosh, Ph.D.
University of Georgia, 1990
Professor
wmcintosh@georgiasouthern.edu
Will McIntosh received his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Georgia in 1990. Since then he has been at Georgia Southern. He teaches classes in Social Psychology, Senior Research, Careers in Psychology, Environmental Psychology, Research Design, and team-teaches Humanistic/Transpersonal Psychology as well as large sections of Introductory Psychology. In 2002 he received the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Award of Distinction in Teaching. His current research focuses on internet dating and romantic relationships; in the past he has published research on happiness and goals, collecting behavior, psychological aspects of film and television, and the relationship between psychology and Zen Buddhism. In his spare time he writes science fiction.
Research and Scholarly Interests
- Social psychology
- Happiness
- Film/Television
- Social cognition
Courses
- Introduction to Psychology
- Careers in Psychology
- Research Experience
- Social Psychology
- Humanistic & Transpersonal Psychology
- Directed Research
- Directed Study
- Experimental Social Psychology
- Advanced Social Psychology
- Development of Original Research
- Advanced Directed Study