Kansas State University

College of Arts and Sciences department leadership update

Submitted by College of Arts and Sciences

The College of Arts and Sciences has had leadership changes in two of its departments: history and psychological sciences.

David Graff is the new department chair of history. Graff has been the holder of the Richard A. and Greta Bauer Pickett chair for exceptional faculty since 2017. He is the director of K-State's undergraduate program in East Asian studies and associate director of the graduate program in security studies. His research focuses on Chinese military history, especially that of the Tang dynasty. Graff received his doctorate in East Asian studies from Princeton University in 1995 and came to Kansas State University in 1998 after holding temporary teaching positions at Southern Methodist University and Bowdoin College and spending a year as a visiting scholar at Harvard University.

Gary Brase is the interim department head of psychological sciences. Brase's research is concerned with evolutionary approaches to understanding the nature of human rationality. His research, in terms of traditional areas within psychology, is at the intersection of cognitive psychology — reasoning, judgments and decision-making — and social psychology — interpersonal relations, social perception and persuasion. Brase received his doctorate in psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Learn more about the history and or the psychological sciences departments.