Dr. Sheila Burns
Professor of Psychology and Department Head
Ph.D., (Experimental) University of California at Berkeley, 1983

Dr. Burns has been teaching in the department since 1974. She accepted a tenure track position in 1988, and earned full professor status in 1997. She has served on numerous policy setting committees including The Budget and Planning, University Priorities, and Retention committees. She is also well known for her strong contributions to university standards by serving as Program Evaluator for the Masters in Science in Nursing Program and by serving on the Human Subjects Research Review Committee.

Dr. Burns is an experimental psychologist whose teaching interests include human learning, attention, and cognition; statistics, and program evaluation. Her current research is concerned with the factors which contribute to forgetting and the role of general verbal, spatial, and analytical skills in learning. She is married to Charles Leith and shares extra-curricular activities with him and their two children. She is especially fond of Mexican food and movies.