Chair's Message

We wish to acknowledge this land on which the University of Toronto operates. For thousands of years, it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land. 

Since James Mark Baldwin created the first experimental psychology laboratory here in 1889, the University of Toronto has been educating students, training researchers, and generating new knowledge about the mind, brain, and behaviour. Today, the Department of Psychology offers a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) degree through our major, minor, certificate, specialist, and research specialist undergraduate programs of study. With well over 1,000 students enrolled in these programs and thousands more taking our courses annually, Psychology plays a part in educating nearly a third of all students in the Faculty of Arts & Science at some point during their undergraduate careers.

A bustling hub for teaching and research, the Department boasts a collection of prominent scholars and award-winning educators from across the field’s subdisciplines. Our cutting-edge research spans the study thought and behaviour from microscopic studies of single cells to broad surveys of entire communities and populations, hitting nearly every level of analysis in between. The Department also operates the Toronto Neuorimaging Facility (ToNI), which features a research-dedicated fMRI scanner and EEG systems available to our internal researchers and to members outside of the University of Toronto community. Please visit the individual pages of our faculty members to read more about their research and to connect to their lab websites. 

We offer multiple opportunities for students to obtain first-hand experience working in our research efforts, including programs sponsored by the Faculty of Arts & Science and several undergraduate courses that allow students to conduct independent and collaborative research with the dozens of faculty, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows that form our community. Through a diverse curriculum of courses, our internationally recognized scientists provide students with the rigorous training that they need to join our Department’s alumni as leaders in government, industry, education, and academia. Situated in one of the world’s safest and most diverse cities, our students have unprecedented opportunities to engage with the community formally and informally through their studies for a holistic and enriching scholarly experience.

We invite you to join us or reach out to learn more.

Professor Jay Pratt, Interim Chair of the Department of Psychology