The Georgia Tech School of Psychological and Brain Sciences (PBS) is celebrating a significant milestone as Georgia Tech rises to No. 82 worldwide and No. 36 among U.S. universities in psychology in the 2026 Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings by Subject.

The global ranking represents a substantial advance from 2024, when Georgia Tech was placed in the 126–150 band. The latest results position Georgia Tech among the world's top 100 universities for psychology and among the top 40 nationally. Georgia Tech is also the highest-ranked university in Georgia for psychology, ahead of both public and private institutions in the State.

The recognition follows improvements in several measures of research and education, particularly research quality, teaching, and international engagement.

“This recognition is encouraging, not simply because of the ranking itself, but because it reflects the collective efforts of our faculty, students, postdoctoral researchers, staff, and collaborators,” said Tansu Celikel, professor and chair of the School of Psychological and Brain Sciences. “Our focus is on asking important questions, conducting rigorous research, and preparing the next generation of scientists. It is gratifying to see that work gain greater international visibility.”

Research Quality Drives Strong Performance

One of the most notable developments is Georgia Tech's improvement in research quality, which rose from 77.2 in 2024 to 86.5 in 2026 on THE's 100-point scale.

The 2026 research quality score also compares favorably with other leading universities in Georgia. Emory University received a score of 68.3, while the University of Georgia scored 74.8.

THE's research quality indicators consider citation impact, research strength, research excellence, and research influence. Together, they provide a multidimensional assessment of scholarly contributions and their influence on subsequent research.

Georgia Tech also recorded gains in teaching, with its score increasing from 32.3 to 43.9, and research environment, which rose from 34.6 to 40.0. Its international outlook score increased from 56.1 to 59.3.

“These rankings offer one perspective on academic performance, and no single measure can capture the full value of a research and educational community,” Celikel said. “What matters most is that our work contributes meaningful knowledge, creates opportunities for our students, and helps address important questions about the brain, mind, and behavior.”

Five Programs Connecting Brain, Behavior, and Technology

The School's research and educational mission spans five complementary programs: Cognition and Brain Science, Adult Development and Aging, Engineering Psychology, Quantitative Psychology, and Industrial/Organizational (I/O) Psychology.

Together, these programs address fundamental and applied questions about human experience.

Cognition and Brain Science investigates the neural and cognitive mechanisms underlying sensation, perception, learning, memory, attention, and decision-making. Adult Development and Aging examines how cognition, behavior, and everyday functioning change across adulthood and later life.

Engineering Psychology focuses on the interaction between people and technology, including the design of systems that support human abilities, performance, and safety. Quantitative Psychology develops and applies statistical, mathematical, and computational methods to understand complex behavioral and psychological phenomena. Industrial/Organizational Psychology studies behavior in workplaces and organizations, including employee well-being, teamwork, leadership, and performance.

These areas provide complementary perspectives on how people think, learn, work, interact with technology, and adapt throughout life. They also create opportunities for collaboration across traditional disciplinary boundaries.

“Our five programs reflect the breadth of psychological science and the different ways it contributes to understanding people and the world around us,” Celikel said. “What makes our School distinctive is not only the strength of these individual areas, but also the opportunities for them to work together and connect with Georgia Tech's expertise in engineering, computing, and the sciences.”

An Interdisciplinary Environment for Discovery

The School's position within a leading science and engineering institution creates unique opportunities to advance psychological and brain sciences through interdisciplinary research, technological innovation, and collaboration.

Research at PBS spans experimental, computational, theoretical, and applied approaches, connecting discoveries about neural circuits and cognitive processes with research on human development, decision-making, workplaces, and human-centered technologies.

Over the past four years, PBS has significantly expanded its research infrastructure by establishing three Centers of Excellence focused on Navigation, Computational Cognition, and Human, Robot & AI Teaming, alongside new core facilities supporting the multimodal observation and control of brain and behavior.

These investments bring together expertise across psychology, neuroscience, engineering, computing, robotics, and artificial intelligence, creating new opportunities to investigate fundamental questions about how brains and intelligent systems perceive, learn, decide, and act.

The Centers of Excellence provide complementary platforms for interdisciplinary discovery. Research on navigation connects spatial cognition, neural mechanisms, and adaptive behavior. Computational cognition brings quantitative and computational approaches to understanding how minds and brains process information. Human, Robot & AI Teaming examines how people and intelligent technologies can interact, coordinate, and collaborate effectively.

Complementing these initiatives, the School's core research facilities support integrated approaches to studying brain and behavior across multiple levels of analysis. By enabling multimodal measurement and experimental control, these capabilities help researchers connect neural activity, cognitive processes, and observable behavior within increasingly sophisticated experimental settings.

Together, the centers and facilities strengthen the School's capacity to pursue ambitious scientific questions, support collaborative research, and provide students and early-career scientists with access to advanced research methods and technologies.

“We are working hard to create an environment where researchers can pursue questions that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries,” said Celikel. “Our Centers of Excellence and shared research facilities are investments in people and possibilities. They help us bring different perspectives together, support our students and colleagues, and pursue scientific questions that would be difficult to address within any single discipline.”

These developments reflect a broader commitment to building a collaborative research community in which fundamental discoveries about the brain, mind, and behavior can inform, and be informed by, advances in technology and computational science.

Looking Beyond the Rankings

The 2026 THE psychology rankings evaluated 694 universities across 64 countries and territories using 18 performance indicators organized into five categories: teaching, research environment, research quality, industry engagement, and international outlook.

While these rankings assess institutional performance rather than individual academic schools independently, they provide an international benchmark for Georgia Tech's development in psychological and brain sciences.

For PBS, the milestone offers an opportunity to recognize the contributions of its community while maintaining a focus on the scientific questions, educational mission, and collaborations that drive its work.

“We appreciate this recognition, but our ambitions extend well beyond rankings,” Celikel said. “Our priority is to foster an environment where talented people can pursue important scientific questions, collaborate generously, and produce research that advances our understanding of the human brain and behavior. If we do those things well, recognition will follow.”

Learn more through the 2026 Times Higher Education Psychology Rankings, the ranking methodology, and the PBS graduate programs.