Ph.D. Programs

At Peabody, you’ll join what is arguably the nation’s most highly qualified cadre of Ph.D. students working on issues of education, psychology, and human development. Our doctoral students enjoy close teamwork with faculty on leading-edge research. Many often combine this with opportunities to pursue their own research interests.

View a list of our Ph.D. programs.

Leading researchers on the Peabody faculty include:

• Thomas M. Smith serves as principal investigator and director of the National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools, a federally-funded research and development center focused on identify programs, practices, processes and policies that make some high schools more effective at reaching certain students. Smith conducts research on how to improve teaching quality by exploring relationships between educational policy, school organization, teacher commitment, and classroom instruction.
• Rich Lehrer is an internationally recognized scholar in the field of mathematics and science education. Working in partnership with teachers from elementary through middle school, Lehrer applies knowledge of young children’s thinking about space and geometry to teach math and science concepts built on everyday experiences. Lehrer received the American Psychological Association’s 2009 award for Distinguished Contributors of Applications of Psychology to Education and Training.
• Douglas Fuchs and Lynn Fuchs have been instrumental in developing responsiveness-to-intervention, or RTI, a multi-tiered approach toward better identifying students with learning disabilities. The two were named to Forbes magazine’s list of 14 revolutionary educators in December 2009.
• Stella M. Flores employs large-scale databases and quantitative methods in scholarly investigations of the impact of state and federal policies on college access and completion among low-income and underrepresented populations. In 2010, Flores was named a National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow.
• Susan Saegert conducts research into innovative efforts to stabilize weakened neighborhoods through purchasing and rehabilitating foreclosed and abandoned properties, redeveloping vacant properties as housing and establishing financing mechanisms for low- to middle-income homebuyers of foreclosed properties.
• Donna Y. Ford is a special educator whose investigations address the achievement gap between black and white students in the United States and particularly the underrepresentation of black students in gifted programs. Ford was honored with the 2008 National Association of Gifted Children Distinguished Scholar Award.
• Judy Garber is a nationally-recognized scholar investigating the nature of and treatments for adolescent depression. In 2009, Garber authored a national study showing the positive benefits of a cognitive behavioral program for teens at risk of depression. Her findings were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

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