Chair of Baylor's Department of Psychology and Neuroscience Is Named Chair of the Council of Graduate Departments of Psychology

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WACO, Texas (April 11, 2013) -- Jim Diaz-Granados, Ph.D., chair of the department of psychology and neuroscience in Baylor University's College of Arts & Sciences, has been named chair of the Council of Graduate Departments of Psychology (COGDOP), a national organization.
Comprised of nearly 300 of the nation's graduate psychology programs, the council represents the voice of academic psychologists regarding research and practice to a variety of relevant national organizations including, but not limited to, the Association for Psychological Science, the American Psychological Association, and relevant directorates of the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health.
Diaz-Granados also serves as a commissioner on the 32-member Commission on Accreditation, which is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education and the Council of Higher Education Accreditation as the national accrediting authority for education and training in psychology. This includes all psychology graduate, internship, and postdoctoral programs.
Diaz-Granados also is a professor of psychology, neuroscience and biomedical studies at Baylor University. He received his Ph.D. in Psychology (Behavioral Neuroscience concentration) from The University of Texas at Austin.
He joined the Baylor faculty as an assistant professor in 1996 and became chair in 2006. Before coming to Baylor, he was a post-doctoral fellow in the Center for Drug and Alcohol Programs at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, S.C. He is an active investigator in the developmental, behavioral, and neurochemical aspects of alcohol abuse and addiction. He has worked with animal models of fetal alcohol syndrome, adolescent alcohol abuse, and most recently, in aging. In addition, he has investigated the effects of early stress on subsequent susceptibility to alcohol use, anxiety, and ensuing stressors.
His work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense. He has been a member of COGDOP since 2006 and was elected to the board in 2010. He just finished his first year as a commissioner on the APA Commission on Accreditation. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, the International Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism, the International Society for Developmental Psychobiology, and the Research Society on Alcoholism.
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Baylor University is a private Christian university and a nationally ranked research institution, characterized as having "high research activity" by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The university provides a vibrant campus community for approximately 15,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating university in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 80 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 11 nationally recognized academic divisions. Baylor sponsors 19 varsity athletic teams and is a founding member of the Big 12 Conference.
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The College of Arts & Sciences is Baylor University's oldest and largest academic division, consisting of 26 academic departments and 13 academic centers and institutes. The more than 5,000 courses taught in the College span topics from art and theatre to religion, philosophy, sociology and the natural sciences. Faculty conduct research around the world, and research on the undergraduate and graduate level is prevalent throughout all disciplines.