Anne Noonan

PhD, Psychology, Boston University, 1996.

MA Psychology, Boston University, 1992.

BA, Psychology, Framingham State College, 1984.

After a career as a research scientist at the Wellesley (College) Centers for Women and New England Research Institutes, I was thrilled to join the faculty at Salem State in 2007. I currently teach courses that deal with issues of diversity, such as Psychology of Gender (formerly Psychology of Women) and Topics in Social and Cultural Diversity (in which I focus on social class and its intersections with race and other important social identities). As a writer who understands psychology (and life in general) best when I write about it, I regularly teach courses in the Writing Intensive Curriculum. I have also taught Adulthood and Old Age, General Psychology, First Year Seminar, Childhood and Adolescence, and Abnormal Psychology. My general research interests include narrative psychology, the subjective aspects of social class, marginalized identities and social relationships, and meaning-making. I was Faculty Fellow in the Center for Teaching Innovation from 2017-2019. I also served for two years as a Faculty Fellow for the First Year Experience, focusing mainly on the First Year Seminar program. A textbook written with William Ming Liu on the psychology of social class was published in 2021. I am also an author of creative nonfiction.

I am currently designing a hybrid research x creative project on the psychological meanings of the notion of "home."  Previously I have served as Principal Investigator of federal research grants: a National Science Foundation (NSF) study of science and math education among urban high school students, a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study of religiosity and sexuality among adolescents, and an NIH study of the relational resources of older workers. Other research projects I have worked on have focused on diverse populations such as: middle school students enrolled in comprehensive sexuality education; informal caregivers to frail elders; adolescent substance abusers in publicly funded treatment; same-sex couples; urban high school students in school-to-work programs; school-age children and their out-of-school time; and young children in a variety of care settings. I have also worked in the area of refugee and immigrant services.

Noonan, A.E., & Liu, W.M. (2021). Psychology and the social class worldview: A narrative-based introduction. London: Taylor&Francis/Routledge.

Spending time with family, writing creative nonfiction, riding my bicycle, practicing yoga.