Faculty & Staff

Associate Professor of Psychology Thomas Armstrong has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and studies the interaction between attention and emotion in anxiety-related disorders. In the classroom, Armstrong teaches psychology from an interdisciplinary perspective. In his laboratory, he conducts experimental psychopathology research. And in the Walla Walla community, he practices psychotherapy.

Associate Professor of Psychology Pavel Blagov has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Emory University. His teaching interests include personality, psychological measurement and testing and courses about the classification and treatment of psychopathology. He also teaches research methods, research on sexual orientation, and forensic psychology, and is well-versed in basic neuroscience and psychopharmacology.

Professor Melissa Clearfield is fascinated by how infants learn and develop. She's been studying developmental psychology since the first moments of her undergraduate career. Professor Clearfield earned her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology (with minors in Behavioral Neuroscience and Kinesiology) from Indiana University before joining the psychology department at Whitman in the summer of 2001. Professor Clearfield’s current line of research explores whether socio-economic status impacts attention and executive function in very young infants

Assistant Professor of Psychology Nancy Day loved her high school science courses and, upon entering college, was certain she would major in biology (and she did). What she didn't expect was that she'd find psychology equally fascinating and want to major in it as well. Day investigates how experiences and biological factors interact to influence behavior, particularly speech and language, in both her research lab and her courses.

Professor Walter Herbranson is a comparative psychologist, studying the behavior and cognitive abilities of animals in an evolutionary context. In addition to organizing a comparative cognition lab in Maxey Hall, Herbranson teaches several courses, including Psychology of Learning, Comparative and Evolutionary Psychology and Psychological Statistics.

Born and raised in Hawaii, Assistant Professor of Psychology Chanel Meyers became interested in how racial diversity impacts how people deal with race and identity. Her research and teaching interests are intergroup relations, stereotyping, prejudice, discrimination, multiracial identity, racial bias, social perception an social cognition. Meyers' program of research examines how increasing diversity in society shapes intergroup processes across contexts and groups.

Senior Lecturer of Psychology Stephen Michael researches the role that social and cognitive processes play in issues within the legal system. He earned his Ph.D. in Psychology with a concentration in Legal Psychology from the University of Texas, El Paso. A majority of Michael’s research has focused on the psychological processes that influence deception detection and investigative interviewing techniques. 

Associate Professor of Psychology Erin Pahlke became passionate about psychology while an undergraduate student. In her research and teaching, Pahlke is interested in answering broad questions about development, children's and adolescents' understanding of dscrimination, the effects of single-sex schooling, children's interest in and knowledge of politics and gender, ethnic-racial and political socialization. She enjoys working with students to explore core questions related to development, schools, families and social environments.

Professor Matthew W. Prull earned his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology at Claremont Graduate University. He then later specialized in cognitive neuroscience as a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford before arriving at Whitman in 1999. Professor Prull's research interests focus on understanding adult age-related patterns of change and stability in mental abilities such as memory, language and the use of general knowledge.