Thiel College psychology professor Kristel Gallagher awarded tenure

Posted August 07, 2019 Print

GREENVILLE, Pa.-- Thiel College Associate Professor of Psychology Kristel Gallagher, Ph.D., was recently awarded tenure.

Gallagher has taught at Thiel College since 2015 and is the advisor for the social psychology track of the psychology major at the school. She is also a faculty athletic representative to the NCAA for Thiel College.

The National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology gave Gallagher the Frank Costin Memorial Award for Excellence (2019). Thiel College recognized her with the Faculty Scholarship Award (2019), the Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award (2018) and faculty development grants in 2016 and 2017. She has written or co-written 21 different published articles or papers. She was the principal investigator for securing four research grants, the project coordinator on two others and was identified as a key member of the personnel for a recently-funded National Science Foundation Grant. She has participated in 11 invited talks, panels and teaching engagements, and presented at 17 conferences since coming to Thiel.

A 2007 Waynesburg University graduate, Gallagher earned her master’s (2009) and doctoral degrees (2012) in experimental social and health psychology from Kent State University.

Gallagher teaches a variety of psychology courses including General Psychology, Research Methods, Applied Health Psychology, Social Psychology and Experimental Social Psychology. She also teaches and has been recognized for her work incorporating statistical coding and the analysis of real-world, large-scale data into the social sciences with her course Statistics for the Social Sciences. She leads students through the “Humans of Western Pa. Project,” modeled on the popular “Humans of New York” photoblog, each fall to enhance understanding and empathy between strangers with street photography. This spring she taught a special topics course on the Psychology of Eating.