Rate My Professor Joseph Ferrari

Dn. Joseph R. Ferrari, Ph.D., is the Vincent de Paul Distinguished Professor of Psychology in the College of Science and Health at DePaul University, Chicago, where he has held a full professorship since 2003 and the distinguished Vincent de Paul professorship since 2006. He joined DePaul in 1993 as a research scientist and progressed through visiting assistant professor, associate professor, and full professor roles. His academic background includes a Ph.D. in psychology from Adelphi University in 1989, an M.A. in general psychology from Adelphi University in 1985, an M.S. in experimental psychology from SUNY College at Cortland in 1981, and a B.A. in psychology magna cum laude from St. Francis College, Brooklyn, in 1978. Earlier in his career, he served as assistant professor and director of psychology at Cazenovia College, visiting assistant professor at CUNY/Baruch College, assistant professor at Mohawk Valley Community College, instructor at Elizabeth Seton College, and research assistant at SUNY Cortland.

Ferrari's research specializations include chronic procrastination, impostor phenomena, self-handicapping and attribution processes, attitude change and persuasion, community-based service-learning and volunteerism, community building and sense of community, recovery from addiction, health psychology, program evaluation, and behavior analysis in the community. An internationally renowned expert on chronic procrastination, he has produced over 367 peer-reviewed publications, more than 700 scholarly conference presentations, and 8 books, including Still Procrastinating: The No Regrets Guide to Getting It Done (2010) and Procrastination and Task Avoidance: Theory, Research, and Treatment (1995). His scholarship has garnered over 30,000 citations with an h-index of 93 and reached over 1 billion viewers across countries in 2024-25. Key grants include two NIH-funded projects totaling more than $4.2 million as co-principal investigator evaluating Oxford House recovery homes. Awards include the 2025 DePaul Excellence in Research Award, 2016 American Psychological Association Distinguished Italian American Psychologist Award, 2009 DePaul Excellence in Public Service Award, 2001 DePaul Spirit of Inquiry Award for Outstanding Scholarship, and the 2004 Psi Chi Thelma Hunt Research Grant Award. Since 1995, he has served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Prevention and Intervention in the Community. A Fellow of the American Psychological Association (since 2002), Association for Psychological Science, Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and Society for Community Research and Action, Ferrari was ordained a Permanent Deacon in 2013 for the Diocese of Joliet.