Hello, and welcome!

Cosmo, one of my research subjects.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my personal website. I am an associate professor of psychology at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA. I earned my bachelor's of science degree in psychology from Denison University in 2007, and my master's and doctoral degrees in psychology from the University of Georgia in 2009 and 2013, respectively.

My research interests include origins of language, animal cognition, interspecies social relationships, and comparisons between parrot speech and child language. Both my master's thesis and my dissertation explored one parrot's use of speech to regulate and manipulate her social relationship with her.

I devote much of my time and energy to developing my skills as an instructor and undergraduate mentor. I have taught Introductory Psychology, Research Design in Psychology, History and Systems of Psychology, and Learning and Behavior. I am also the coauthor of a research mentoring handbook for students and faculty titled the SURE (Specialized Undergraduate Research Experience) Workbook. This interactive guide was developed with my colleague, Dr. Elizabeth Simpson.

This website provides an overview of my research, student mentoring, and other professional activities. Please feel free to contact me with any questions at ecolbertwhite@pugetsound.edu.

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PSYC311 Rat Training

​Click the photo above to watch some of my students' rats in action! Students in Learning and Behavior (PSYC311) use only positive reinforcement to train their rats to perform a variety of fun behaviors.

Recent Lab News

Lab member Andre Zamani's summer project, "Oxytocin affects reaction time but not appraisal of uncanny valley stimuli," earned the Best Poster award for the Psychology, Exercise Science, and Neuroscience division at the Murdock College Research Conference.