Psychology Faculty

David J. Bennett, Ph.D. Dr. Bennett came to North Park University in Fall 2002 after teaching for five years at Simmons College in Boston. Prior to that he received his graduate research training in experimental-cognitive/neural psychology. He has a Bachelor of Science degree from Loyola University of Chicago and a MA and PhD from the University of South Florida. His research interests include memory, teaching, and humor. Dr. Bennett teaches Intro Psychology, Research Methods, Learning and Cognition, Perception, and the Psychology of Humor and Laughter. His favorite color is red.

Elizabeth Gray, Ph.D. Dr. Gray came to North Park University in Fall 2002 after her graduate research training in personality and social psychology and teaching at the University of Iowa. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a MA and PhD from the University of Iowa. Her research interests include the stability of personality, the effects of personality in romantic relationships, and behavioral manifestations of personality in young adulthood (e.g., the effects of personality and sleep on academic performance). Dr. Gray teaches Personality, Social Psychology, Psychological Testing, and Intimate Relationships in her specialty area. She also teaches Introductory Psychology and Human Lifespan Development. Dr. Gray is the Division Director and Associate Dean for the Division of Sciences and is the faculty advisor for Psi Chi, the National Honors Society in Psychology at North Park University.

Dr. Schmale came to North Park University in Fall 2008 after her graduate research training in developmental psychology and psycholinguistics at Purdue University. She has a B.A. in both Psychology and Spanish and Portuguese from the University of California, Berkeley and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Purdue University. Her research interests include the effects of dialect and foreign accent variation on language acquisition in infants and toddlers, the mechanisms of early bilingual acquisition, and the relationship between processing of social and linguistic information. Dr. Schmale teaches Introduction to Psychology, Human Lifespan Development, Abnormal Psychology, and Psychology of Language. She is the Chair of the Psychology department, Director of the North Park University Baby Lab, and the faculty advisor for the Psychology Club.