Jan Hitchcock , Associate Dean, Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences 
PhD., Harvard

Jan Hitchcock has been a faculty member in Social and Behavioral Sciences at LAC since 1991. Her teaching centers on development across the life span and on interdisciplinary topics such as spirituality, risk, and poetry. She integrates cross cultural perspectives into many of her courses.

After receiving a Ph.D. in Personality and Developmental Psychology, she conducted research on topics bridging the social sciences and public health - smoking, substance abuse, and utilization of screening mammography - at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and USM's Muskie School of Public Service. Her current research and writing focuses on risk perception and on the interrelationships between poetry and psychology.

Recent work includes "Gender Differences in Risk Perception: Broadening the Contexts," published in Risk: Health, Safety & Environment, the journal of the Risk Assessment and Policy Association; "Life Experiences, Personality, and Individual Differences in Risk Perception," presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Risk Analysis; and "Transforming Words: Poetry and Psychologies of Change," presented at the 19th International Conference on Literature and Psychology in Arezzo, Italy.

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