School Psychology Program

Margaret L. (Peg) Potter (Ph.D., 1983, University of Minnesota) came to MSU Moorhead in 1987 after working as a school psychologist in Iowa for five years. She primarily teaches courses within the School Psychology Program, but also teaches at the undergraduate level. She has been active in research on Curriculum Based Measurement and is interested in field-based research that responds to educational needs. Dr. Potter is Director of the School Psychology Program.

Lisa H. Stewart (Ph.D, 1994, University of Oregon), a native Minnesotan, earned her Ph.D. in school psychology from the University of Oregon, where she also was a Visiting Assistant Professor in the School Psychology program. She moved back to Minnesota in 1995 and was an Assistant Professor in the MSU School Psychology program for two years, followed by two years as a school psychologist for the Fergus Falls Special Education Cooperative. She has published several journal articles and book chapters, and regularly presents at state and national conferences.  Her areas of research interest include reintegration of students with disabilities into regular classrooms, curriculum-based assessment, and designing and evaluating academic interventions.

Olivia Melroe (Ed.D., 1996, University of South Dakota; M.S. Moorhead State University) is a graduate of the school psychology program here at MSUM and completed her Ed.D. in the school psychology program at USD. She has served as a school psychologist in the GST Cooperative (Portland, ND) and in Bemidji, MN. Her research interests relate to personality characteristics of creative people and multicultural issues in school psychology.

Other Psychology Department Faculty

School Psychology students will also take classes (e.g., graduate level Developmental Psych, Social Psych, Bio Psych) from other Psychology Department faculty who are members of the Graduate Faculty.  Below are short biographical sketches for these Psychology Department faculty members:

Rochelle Bergstrom (Ph.D. 2005, North Dakota State University) has her doctorate in Experimental psychology with a Social/Health emphasis. She also has a Master's degree in Clinical Behavioral psychology from Eastern Michigan University. She teaches Social Psychology courses along with General Psychology. Her primary research interests are in the area of social and cultural influences on body image and the development of social-based interventions for body image problems.

Magdalene Chalikia (Ph.D., 1985, McGill University, Montreal) teaches perception/cognition, statistics, and lab courses. Her primary area of interest is auditory perception, particularly the strategies that the perceptual system uses in order to analyze the acoustic environment and build representations of different acoustic events. Other areas of interest include perceptual illusions, speech perception, and psychology of language (language acquisition, bilingualism, reading).

A. Derick Dalhouse (Ph.D., 1974, Ohio State University) teaches introductory psychology and laboratory courses in experimental methods, motivation, and physiological psychology. His current research interests include hypertension, CNS functions, the limbic system, central neurotransmitters, and learning.

Ernest W. (Willie) Hallford (Ph.D., 1984, Ohio State University) teaches courses in perception, development, statistics, and research methods. He is particularly interested in the perception of spatial relationships, attention problems, and the psychology of art.

Richard A. Kolotkin (Ph.D., 1978, University of Minnesota) is a clinical psychologist. He teaches personality, abnormal, and clinical psychology. His interests include assertiveness training, psychodiagnosis, psychotherapy, and primary prevention.

Christine P. Malone (Ph.D., 1998, University of Nevada) teaches learning and memory, as well as statistics and methodology courses. Her research deals primarily with cognitive processes involved in spoken word recognition, reading, and memory performance.  Dr. Malone also has two years of market research experience designing and managing studies to address a wide array of applied issues regarding consumer preferences and behavior.

Elizabeth (Lisa) Shannon Nawrot (Ph.D., M.A., University of California, Berkeley, 1993, 1990; B.S. Carnegie-Mellon University, 1988). Dr. Nawrot's area of speciality is developmental psychology with current research projects investigating social-emotional and cognitive development from infancy through early childhood. Dr. Nawrot teaches Child Development and Developmental Psychology.

Gary S. Nickell (Ph.D., 1982, Oklahoma State University) teaches social behavior, industrial psychology, environmental psychology, and applied psychology. His research is in applied psychological areas such as conflict mediation, sports psychology, women in management, nonverbal communication, seasonal affective disorder, and computer anxiety. Dr. Nickell is Chair of the Psychology Department.

Special Education and Counseling Faculty

In addition to members of the school psychology "core" faculty and the rest of the psychology department,  students will take classes from and get to know faculty members in other departments--particularly special education and counseling.