Graduate students and faculty talking at a conference table.

Join a nationally known, diverse community of scholars exploring child/adolescent development, culture, gender, sexuality and families. Students in our doctoral program are immersed in a highly diverse, dynamic and influential intellectual community around research that has important practical implications. Our faculty has expertise in areas such as immigrant families and communities, culture, racial/ethnic socialization, child/adolescent and lifespan development, sexuality and gender-based violence. Our Ph.D. and MA programs leverage the extraordinary interdisciplinary strengths of our department and prepare students for both cutting-edge research and academic careers as well as careers in government and social policy.

Students complete a rigorous, focused program that prepares them for cutting-edge research in a university or a public/private research organization. Students may enter the Doctoral program with or without a master’s degree. Those entering without a master’s degree will complete all required coursework for the Master’s program, including a Master’s thesis, prior to additional required coursework for the Ph.D. program.

DYAD was formerly known as Lifespan Human Development and Family Studies (LHDFD); if you are applying for graduate study with the DYAD concentration, select the LHDFD concentration in the application system.

PhD Concentration in Diversity, Youth, and Family Development