Laura A. Freberg is Professor of Psychology at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where she teaches courses in Introductory Psychology and Biological Psychology. She is the author of four editions of Discovering Behavioral Neuroscience: An Introduction to Biological Psychology for Cengage Learning. With the late John Cacioppo and Steph Cacioppo of the University of Chicago, Laura is the co-author of four editions of Discovering Psychology: The Science of Mind for Cengage Learning. She is lead author of Research Methods in Psychological Science for TopHat, and author of An Introduction to Applied Behavioral Neuroscience for Taylor & Francis.
Laura completed her undergraduate and graduate studies at UCLA, where her thinking about psychology was shaped by Eric Holman, John Garcia, O. Ivar Lovaas, Larry Butcher, Jackson Beatty, John Libeskind, Donald Novin, Frank Krasne, and F. Nowell Jones. She was privileged to study neuroanatomy with Arnold Scheibel, and investigated the effects of psychoactive drugs on learning and memory under the direction of Murray Jarvik and Ronald Siegel in the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. As a capstone to her education, Laura completed her dissertation with Robert Rescorla, then at Yale University.
Laura’s teaching career began when she taught her first college course at Pasadena City College at the age of 23 while still a graduate student at UCLA. Beginning in 2011, to better understand the needs of the online education community, she also began teaching for Argosy University Online, including courses in Social Psychology, Sensation/Perception, Statistics, Research Methods, Cognitive Psychology, and Writing in Psychology. She has received Faculty Member of the Year recognition from Cal Poly Disabilities Resource Center three times (1991, 1994, and 2009) for her work with students with disabilities. She enjoys using technology and social media in the classroom, and is a Google Glass Explorer. Laura enjoys collaborating with daughters Kristin Saling (Systems Engineering—U.S. Military Academy at West Point) and Karen Freberg (Communications—University of Louisville) on a variety of research projects in crisis management and public relations as well as in psychology. She served as President of the Western Psychological Association in 2019 and is the Psychology Consultant to the New York Times InEducation.
In her spare time, Laura enjoys family time with her husband, Roger, their youngest daughter Karla, who has autism spectrum disorder, and an active menagerie including two Australian shepherds, two cats, and two parakeets. She usually writes while consuming vast quantities of Gevalia coffee and listening to the Rolling Stones (which might be apparent in her writing style), and has been known to enjoy college football, Harley Davidsons, episodes of Game of Thrones that do not feature weddings, The Blacklist, and Sherlock. Her ringtone is from Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda.
