Faculty Research Interests

GROWTH Lab

The Growing Resilient Outcomes Within The Home (GROWTH) Lab advocates for children and families through research and community-engaged projects.

GROWTH lab

He Lab

The He Lab investigates how environmental factors, task demands and cognitive ability affect learning and decision-making during spatial navigation.

He Lab

PHASE Lab

The Psychophysiology, Health, and Stress Evaluation Laboratory (PHASE Lab) focuses on understanding the role of stress and psychosocial factors in influencing both physical and psychological health outcomes.

PHASE Lab

Student volunteer being connected to a sleep monitoring device for a session

The Sleep and Memory Computational Lab

The lab incorporates various empirical and theoretical techniques to investigate our research questions.

The Sleep and Memory Computational Lab

TARDIS Lab

The Team on Acculturation, Risk, and the Development of Identity and Self (TARDIS) at University of Texas at San Antonio is directed by Dr. Alan Meca (Pronouns: el, he, him).

TARDIS Lab

Research conducted at the UTSA Department of Psychology spans all of the major areas of experimental psychology.

Faculty research interests are listed below.

Michael Baumann, Ph.D.

Groups, teams, and multiteam systems
Perceiving & leveraging expertise
Social / workplace factors in substance use
Workplace attitudes towards women

James H. Bray, Ph.D.

Family Psychology & Health
Adolescent Substance Use
Primary Care Psychology

Thomas Coyle, Ph.D.

Mental Ability, Intelligence, & IQ
Brain Aging & Cerebral Health Markers
Academic Aptitude Test (SAT and ACT)

Ephrem Fernandez, Ph.D.

Affect Science
Psychosomatics
Anger Assessment & Treatment
Pain

Edward Golob, Ph.D.

Spatial Cognition
Attention and Working Memory
Perception and Action
Age-related Neurological Disorders

Willie Hale, Ph.D.

Interpersonal Perception
Belongingness & Authenticity
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Qiliang He, Ph.D.

Memory and Decision-making
Virtual Reality
Stress and Aging

Joseph W. Houpt, Ph.D.

Cognitive Psychology and Quantitative Methods
Cognitive Modeling
Intersections between AI and Psychology, Visual Perception, Decision Making

Monica Lawson, Ph.D.

Cognitive & Socioemotional Development
Child Maltreatment

Itamar Lerner, Ph.D.

Cognitive & Computational Neuroscience of Memory & Learning
Sleep Effects on Cognition & Emotion

Stella Lopez, Ph.D.

Social Perception
Social Interaction
Academic Success

Mary McNaughton-Cassill, Ph.D.

Veteran Students’ Success
College Student Adjustment
Stress and Coping in the Modern World

Alan Meca, Ph.D.

Identity development across a variety of domains (e.g., ethnic/racial identity, military identity, etc)
Cultural Identity Development among ethnic/racial minorities
Acculturation and cultural stress among immigrant populations

Sandra B. Morissette, Ph.D.

Military Health
Post-deployment Functional Recovery
Trauma, Anxiety and Addictive Behaviors
Smoking Cessation

Adam O'Riordan, Ph.D.

Physiological responses to acute psychological stress
Impact of psychosocial factors and individual differences on psychological and physiological stress responses
Stress physiology and its relationship to physical health outcomes

Augustine Osman, Ph.D.