Rate My Professor Heather Beauchamp

Heather M. Beauchamp is a Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychology at the State University of New York College at Potsdam. She holds a Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Albany. Her academic career has been centered at SUNY Potsdam, where she advanced from associate professor to full professor, contributing extensively to teaching, research, and student mentorship. Beauchamp's research interests encompass cognitive processes, including learning and memory, adolescence, child development, research methods, false memories using the DRM paradigm, modality effects on recall, inattentional and change blindness, enhancing divergent thinking in the classroom, and how twins influence each other's socialization. She teaches courses such as Human Learning & Memory, Cognitive Psychology, and Sensation and Perception, incorporating hands-on experiments where students serve as both experimenters and participants to foster practical skills.

Beauchamp's scholarly work appears in peer-reviewed journals, with selected publications including 'The perceptions, policy and practice of educating twins: A review' (Psychology in the Schools, 2003, co-authored with L. J. Brooks Jr.), which garnered attention in a 2006 New York Times cover story; 'Developmental understanding of means-end contingencies: Effect of familiarity of contingency content' (British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 2003, with J. Newman, B. C. Latimer, and K. Chin-Cheng); 'Aural, visual, and pictorial formats in false recall' (Psychological Reports, 2002); and 'Rethinking STEM education: An interdisciplinary STEAM curriculum' (2013). She has presented research at conferences including the American Psychological Association and Eastern Psychological Association, with recent posters on short-term effects of gratitude and mood enhancement. Her excellence in teaching is evidenced by the President's Award for Excellence in Teaching (2016), Nontraditional Students Organization Appreciation Award (2003), and Top 10 nomination for Phi Eta Sigma Professor of the Year (1999). As Psychology Club advisor and Honors Program mentor, she promotes student intellectual growth through rigorous preparation, positive engagement, and innovative pedagogical techniques.