Community Well-Being Ph.D.

If you are interested and meet the other qualifications (research experience and interested in being a scholar) then we would welcome your application. Please take a look at scra.27.org website and see if it’s a good fit for you. Consider searching online and looking at a community psychology textbook. Also make sure you search for information on faculty members and review some of our publications.

Community psychology is very well aligned with some of these other disciplines such as social work, public health, and some subdisciplines in psychology. Within this set of disciplines, our emphasis is on research involving social issues and marginalized communities through an engaged community involvement process.

Yes. We are open to admitting students who do not have a master’s degree and have had several such students in our program. Students without a master’s degree need to take more courses for a total of 60 credits, and this may require more time.

It depends on your career goals. If you are interested in pursuing a new career path to become a researcher/scholar then this program could be a good fit for you. If you are interested in continuing to do the work you are now doing in the community, then a practice-oriented program or a professional doctoral degree would be a better fit for you.

It sounds like you are interested in learning research skills that can enhance your work as a practitioner. While we work with many schools and non-profits and provide many opportunities to learn about and engage in program evaluation, our emphasis is on the creation and the dissemination of knowledge.

It sounds like this program may be a great fit for you, particularly if your focus is on becoming a community engaged scholar/researcher.

There are a variety of jobs for which our program prepares students. They include academic positions in Psychology Departments, Schools of Education, Schools of Public Health, and Institutes within Medical Schools focusing on specific populations (e.g., adolescents) or issues (e.g. LGBTQ services). Often, a first step toward an academic career after graduation is a one- to two-year post-doctoral training fellowship in a specific area of interest . While our hope is that students will choose academic or research institute careers to maximize their impact, some of our graduates have taken positions with community-based organizations involving applied research, program development, and program evaluation. Students could also pursue administrative positions with local or national governmental agencies that fund research or programs that address social issues, such as immigration or HIV/AIDS. We collectively have extensive professional networks in a wide variety of local, state, and national organizations to aid in this process.

No

We offer a particular emphasis on developing critical and ecological perspectives on community well-being and collaborate with many local community-based organizations working with multicultural communities, youth, and refugees in particular. Our faculty include international experts in critical community psychology, immigration, community-engaged action research, community organizations and coalitions, mattering, the relationship between wellness and fairness, and multidimensional well-being. The Miami area is itself a distinct ecology providing unique opportunities for learning from and contributing to diverse communities and intersecting community issues such as climate resilience and racial justice.

Please feel free to contact any of our faculty to talk about your interests and their current work, philosophy of mentoring, etc. If you have general program questions, contact Dr. Dina Birman at d.birman@miami.edu.