Biography

Susan J. Larson received her BA from the University of Manitoba (1991) and earned her PhD in Experimental Psychology from McMaster University (1997).  She joined the faculty at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN in 1998 after a post-doctoral fellowship at Louisiana State University Medical Center (Shreveport, LA).  She is a Professor of Psychology.  From 2009-2016 she was Concordia College’s first Director of Undergraduate Research, Scholarship and National Fellowships.  She currently serves as the Division Chair for Sciences and Mathematics.  Larson regularly teaches Research Methods, Learning and Behavior, Drugs and Behavior, and senior seminars in the psychology department and neuroscience program.  She engages students in undergraduate research through course-embedded research experiences in a many of her courses, including Research Methods and Learning and Behavior.  She also supervises students in an animal laboratory on research projects including the investigation of behavioral and cognitive changes associated with immune system activation and assessments of motor learning in rats.  Recently, Larson and her student collaborators engaged in a project investigating gender and student participation in the classroom. Larson is a Councilor in the Psychology Division of the Council on Undergraduate Research.  In 2017-2018 she is serving on CUR’s Executive Board as Immediate-Past President of CUR.  She also served as Chair of the Psychology Division of CUR and on the Executive Board from 2009-2012.  She was a co-author of CUR’s Characteristics of Excellence in Undergraduate Research, published in April 2012 and she regularly serves as a facilitator for CUR’s Institutionalizing Undergraduate Research institute