Mentorship and What to Expect
I take a highly collaborative approach to mentoring. On most research projects, one student—sometimes two—serves as the point person, taking the lead. But everyone in the lab contributes: refining the idea, shaping the methodology, and collecting and processing data, including our psychophysiological measures. You’ll see a lot of your lab mates, and a good deal of thinking happens in everyday conversations, along with scheduled meetings.
You’ll typically start by contributing to ongoing lab projects, getting a feel for how we work and where your interests overlap with the lab’s. From there, we’ll work together to develop questions that are genuinely yours. Often a project begins as something a student has been thinking about, which we then shape together into something testable, bringing it to the whole lab to develop further.
My own interests center on everyday stress and resilience, but because that lens touches so much of social psychology, there’s room to bring in other areas you care about and build something new.
Above all, my goal is to help you make the transition from student to colleague—someone who doesn’t just execute research, but drives it.
–Mark Seery, PhD
Programs
UB’s Social-Personality Psychology PhD Program accepts applications once a year, with a deadline in early December.
UB’s General MA Program in Psychology accepts applications once a year, with a deadline in early March.
Planning to Apply?
I will review applications for the 2026-2027 application cycle.
For more information, please feel free to reach out.