Bryan Porter

Dr. Porter joined UWM’s Graduate School as Dean and Professor of Psychology in late spring 2025. He arrived from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, where he began his academic career in 1996.

He strongly believes in the role graduate education plays at an R1 university and in the community for which that university serves. Graduate students make significant contributions to publicly shared scholarship, innovative research, and teaching and mentoring undergraduates in their classrooms and scholarship settings. He looks forward to representing and building the future of UWM’s graduate student ecosystem on campus and beyond with his excellent colleagues here.

Besides working as an administrator, Dr. Porter built a research program that primarily focuses on traffic psychology. He is president of Division 13 (Traffic and Transportation Psychology) for the International Association of Applied Psychology. He is past co-editor-in-chief of Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour and editor of the Handbook of Traffic Psychology. Porter has a significant funding history and experience collaborating across many disciplines to increase safety outcomes. His research has involved both undergraduate and graduate research assistants funded on these grants. He is active in community outreach, including speaking at traffic safety conferences or serving as a subject matter expert for public inquiries, such as media stories on roadway behavior.

Dr. Porter received his B.S. in psychology in honors from Virginia Tech (1990) and M.S. and Ph.D. in experimental psychology from The University of Memphis in (1994 and 1996, respectively).