Professor of Psychology
Academic Degrees
W. David Stahlman, Assistant Professor of Psychology, earned his Ph.D. (2009) and M.A. (2006) in psychology from the University of California at Los Angeles after receiving his B.A. (2004) in neuroscience from Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. His principal academic interests include animal learning, behavior, comparative cognition, creativity and problem solving, and the questions of freedom and determinism.
Dr. Stahlman has had articles published in a number of peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, Learning & Behavior, the International Journal of Comparative Psychology, Behavioural Processes, Animal Behaviour, and Learning & Motivation. He is first author on a chapter, “There is room for conditioning in the creative process,” which is to be published in 2013 by MIT Press in a volume titled The Neuroscience of Creativity. His work has been presented at conferences such as the Conference on Comparative Cognition, the annual meeting of the Psychonomics Society, and the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association.
Dr. Stahlman’s current research is broadly focused around two topics. He is interested in the study of behavioral variability, problem solving, and creativity in animal models (e.g., rats); also, he is interested in the study of simple learning and anti-predator behavior in hermit crabs.