The Quantitative Psychology program provides a unique doctoral training experience, wherein graduate students are trained as quantitative specialists who can interface quantitative methods with substantive issues across the behavioral and social sciences. Students in our program develop a substantial background in quantitative methods. In terms of depth of expertise, some students pursue more depth in quantitative content areas and some students pursue complementary expertise in a non-quantitative content area of psychology (e.g., clinical, cognitive, developmental, health, social, and so on). The exact nature of a student's non-quantitative focus depends on the interests and goals of both the student and the faculty mentor. Current methodological interests in quantitative psychology include psychometric methods, item response theory, structural equation modeling, multivariate statistics, multilevel modeling, mixture modeling, nonparametric statistics, and many other topics on quantitative methods as applied in the behavioral and social sciences.

Students in our program are prepared with many career options in mind. Recent program graduates are employed in (a) academic programs that offer graduate degrees, (b) basic research units in both academic and organizational settings, (c) applied research settings, and (d) freelance consultation settings. Recent data from the American Psychological Association indicate that nearly all graduates from quantitative psychology programs proceed directly into full-time employment. About half the positions are in academic settings, with nearly all of these in upper-tier universities with graduate programs. Quantitative specialists have substantial technical expertise that provides a distinct advantage in the job market. Quantitative specialists often garner higher starting salaries than their non-quantitative peers, and they have access to additional income enhancing activities (e.g., grant involvement and departmental consulting).