Jaime Lane Derringer

Jaime Lane Derringer is an Associate Professor and Assistant Head of Information & Communication in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, affiliated with the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. She co-directs the Etiology of Personality and Individual Characteristics (EPIC) lab with Dr. D. A. Briley, focusing on interdisciplinary research at the intersection of personality psychology and molecular genetics.

Education:

• Post-Doctoral Fellow, Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado
• Ph.D. in Psychology, University of Minnesota
• B.S. in Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University

Research Interests: Her work emphasizes two pillars: (1) broadening inclusion of sexual/gender minority perspectives in psychological science through quantitative method development, and (2) critically examining public and scientific understanding of human behavior genetics. She actively challenges genetic determinism and advocates for anti-racist frameworks in the field.

Teaching: Develops open educational resources for PSYC 408 (Human Behavior Genetics) and PSYC 567 (Personality Assessment). Her pedagogical approach emphasizes critical evaluation of primary literature and ethical considerations in genetics research.

Lab & Teams: Leads the EPIC lab, which conducts longitudinal studies like the POWER Relationship Survey to model personality processes in gender/sexuality-diverse populations. Current projects explore agency measurement, nonbinary attachment models, and psychometric validation of queer-inclusive instruments.