Are you accepting students into the PERL lab?
Effective, June 1, 2020 Dr. Fresco has accepted a faculty position in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan and the Institute for Social Research. He will no longer accept or mentor students at Kent State.

What kind of graduate students do you typically accept?
Academically strong students interested primarily in pursuing academic careers and with a strong background and interest in one or more of the following topics would be a good match for the PERL lab: adult psychopathology, GAD, major depressive disorder, mindfulness and acceptance, emotion regulation and cognitive-behavioral theories and therapies. Increasingly, applicants with a background in affective science as well as biological correlates (e.g., ECG, EEG, fMRI) of emotion and emotion regulation fit well with current and future projects. However, students with vastly different interests may be the conduit for some novel research and/or collaborations that generally complement my general program of research. I strive to create an atmosphere that allows graduate students to develop their own independent and coherent program of research, which in turn will help in cultvating their skills as an independent scholar. Students in the PERL lab typically have multiple writing projects at any given time that are being developed for publication in peer reviewed journals and for presentation at international conferences.

Any advice on strengthening my application for graduate school?
Kent State views itself as a clinical science training program (as opposed to scientist-practioner or practitioner-scholar models), and seeks applicants committed to pursuing academic careers who come to graduate school with excellent academic records, research experience, and demonstrated potential for a successful career as an independent researcher. As best as you can, you should emphasize relevant experience, enthusiasm for your chosen area of study, and some capacity for developing novel, creative, and impactful hypotheses that can contribute to clinical science in general and to the areas studied by the PERL lab. Dr. Mitchell Prinstein of UNC has written a really exceptional guide for graduate school applicants in the area of child clinical psychology, but I think the document has sage advice for anyone interested in the graduate application procedure "Mitch's Uncensored Grad School Advice"

I welcome email inquires from prospective students.