Dr. David Biek studies academic achievement and cognitive development and joined the faculty at Macon State College as an Assistant Professor of Psychology in Fall 2006. He has been actively involved with curricular development at Macon State. Most recently, Dr. Biek served as Chair of the proposal committee that developed the Bachelor of Science degree program in Psychology. Prior to that, he originated several new courses for the College including "Children, Families and the Law" (PSYC 4500) and "The Transition to Adolescence" (MGSE 3130). In May 2008, Dr. Biek participated in a University System of Georgia faculty development seminar to Morocco and Spain; as a result he now serves as Macon State's Study Abroad Coordinator as well as its System Council on International Education representative. His current service to the College includes the Academic Affairs committee (voted Chair-elect), membership on the Institutional Effectiveness and Assessment Board, and as a consultant to the Academic Advising Taskforce. Since joining the Macon State faculty, Dr. Biek has given more than a dozen presentations of his research, including work co-presented with his students.
Dr. Biek received his PhD in developmental psychology from Cornell University in 2006. His doctoral dissertation reported the results from a series of studies he conducted on the central roles that interest and self-efficacy play in determining young women's vulnerability to the experience of stereotype threat. Dr. Biek's dissertation has resulted in several professional presentations; most recently part of his dissertation was cited as a model study in the first comprehensive meta-analysis of the stereotype threat phenomenon (Walton & Spencer, 2009). Prior to his enrollment in Cornell's doctoral program, Dr. Biek taught over 40 sections of ten different college-level courses including child development, cognitive development, adolescence, and educational psychology to more than 1600 students. Dr. Biek has been a Visiting Assistant Professor at the State University of New York (SUNY) College at Brockport and a Visiting Lecturer at SUNY College at Geneseo. He has also taught at Cornell University, the Rochester Institute of Technology, and Monroe Community College.
Dr. Biek received his B.S. from Cornell's program in Human Development in 1996, and a Master of Arts (M.A.) degree from Columbia University (Teacher's College) in 1999. His honors and awards include receiving his B.S. with honors from Cornell, receiving a pre-doctoral training fellowship to work at the Center for Infants and Parents at Teacher's College, and winning two graduate fellowships for doctoral study at Cornell, including one to work as the Education and Extension-Outreach Coordinator at the Cornell Institute for Research on Children (CIRC), funded by the National Science Foundation.
David M. Biek, Ph.D.