With a focus on engaged scholarship and problem-solving, the Applied Psychology -Human Development (APHD) division provides students with a foundation in the core concepts of psychological intervention: assessment, intervention, learning and development, and field research. The division emphasizes three primary themes throughout its training programs: intellectual foundation of life-span human development; theory-building that respects culture and context; and the relevant application of psychology in relationships and systems.

Students learn to (1) understand how adaptive and maladaptive behaviors of individuals and groups are shaped by developmental, cultural, and contextual experiences; and (2) improve youth academic and emotional health in schools, families and neighborhoods.  Students frame major psychological, educational, and social questions; identify and develop evidence bearing on those questions; and work productively at the level of the individual, family, and community as defined differently across the world. Students' orientation in psychological practice and research is toward discovering what works best and why, advancing the understanding of ways to characterize and resolve psychological and social problems, and promoting the use of that knowledge in professional practice, education, and public policy.

Faculty's goal is to provide students with the richest possible opportunities to develop productive careers. Graduates work as university professors and researchers; policy analysts and evaluators in government, corporations or foundations; and in clinical settings as varied as schools, community mental health centers, colleges, prisons, corporations, and specialized health agencies.

Faculty and students undertake research covering much of human development and psychological intervention, including how young children in Head Start programs begin to learn and construct mathematical knowledge; how culture and home-school relations affect early childhood development; how adolescents negotiate racial and academic barriers; how educational technologies promote literacy in developing countries; how intervention in recreation and classrooms increases youth productivity and decreases aggression in school and home settings; how to integrate human development in human services training;  and how to better advance the psychological adjustment of urban school-aged children and adolescents.

For more information on Applied Psychology - Human Development programs, please email Liz Mackenzie, Ph.D., Program Manager at emackenz@gse.upenn.edu.