Welcome to our 2025-2026 Annual Report
This Annual Report highlights the accomplishments and activities of our faculty, students, and staff throughout the 2025–2026 academic year. With a shared commitment, the Department of Psychology continues to advance excellence in research, teaching, and community engagement.
Highlights
Attracting the best and brightest
In January 2026, we welcomed new tenure-track faculty members Dr. Zachary Pennington and Dr. Milan Valyear as Assistant Professors. Their innovative research programs enrich our behavioural neuroscience areas. Dr. Benjamin Cheung accepted a new tenure-track position as Assistant Professor of Teaching. Dr. Cheung’s robust teaching and student engagement program adds to our learning enhancement area. Dr. Yoel Inbar also joined our department as Associate Professor (without review) in our social personality area
Our future direction
In May 2026, psychology faculty and graduate students came together for our first faculty retreat. Key priorities including undergraduate and graduate student opportunities, strengthening expertise across the department’s research areas, and emerging challenges and opportunities related to AI were discussed.
New offerings and courses
To help our students become career-ready graduates, the department launched a new course, PSYC 203: Career Exploration Using Psychology, to help undergraduate students explore career pathways early in their degrees. We also developed three Future Global Leaders mini-schools as part of the UBC Future Global Leaders program.
Engaging our alumni community
This year, we strengthened connections with our incredible alumni community. In September 2025, we once again hosted our annual Coming Home to Psychology event, which brought together the psychology alumni, faculty, staff and students during UBC Homecoming. In April 2026, we hosted our first alumni mixer event. We look forward to building on this momentum and connecting with our alumni at future events and through future programming.
Our commitment to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
In 2025 and 2026, the Psychology Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Committee and Working Groups implemented a number of goals and actions to advance EDI in our department. Our annual EDI Climate Survey was launched and the results were shared at our EDI Strategic Plan Town Hall in May 2026. The full results can be found in the Psychology EDI 2025-2026 Annual Report. This report offers an overview of the progress made by our EDI Working Groups in 2025-2026, along with the challenges faced and plans for the future.
Our place in the world
In 2026, world university rankings recognize UBC Psychology for our excellence in teaching and research as well as our global impact. Our department placed 20th in the world in the 2026 Times Higher Education (THE) subject rankings, 21st in the world in the 2026 QS World University subject rankings, and second in Canada in both THE and QS psychology subject rankings.