Lara Ault, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Dr. Lara Ault completed her Ph.D. in Social Psychology at the University of Louisville. After teaching at a private Catholic University in Philadelphia and a state HBCU in Nashville, TN, she discovered and accepted a position as Associate Professor at Saint Leo University in 2011. She served as Assistant Chair of Social Sciences starting 2012. She was promoted to Associate Chair in 2016 and served until Fall 2018. Her research interests include personal relationships, mate selection, racial and gender stereotypes/prejudice, perceptions of education, and self- and other-perception. Recently she has begun investigating political psychology, identity adherence, and acceptance of fascism. Dr. Ault uses the flipped classroom for her courses and enjoys discovering new active-learning strategies. She teaches Social, Personality, Close Relationships, Senior Seminar, Research Practicum, and the Psychology research sequence, among others at the undergraduate and graduate levels. She also loves mentoring student research and otherwise helping students identify their passions and preparing them for their post-graduate goals. She is a member of Society of Personality and Social Psychology, the Association for Psychological Science, the Society for the Teaching of Psychology, and the Southeastern Psychological Association. She enjoys dancing, social research, and spending time with family, including her 15-year-old son.