First Posted: 6/4/2013
Yaksick graduates from Johns Hopkins and Columbia
Former WBRE team reporter and Old Forge resident Pete Yaksick, now a developmental psychologist with a specialty in adult neurocognition, graduated in May from Columbia University with a M.A. in Developmental Psychology.
He recently complete a Master of Science degree from Johns Hopkins University in neuroeducation and adult learning and a practicum at Colgate University’s Department of Psychology and Neuroscience in 2011.
While at Columbia, he completed a research practicum in the university’s cognitive science program. He has since accepted an offer to remain on a Columbia research team investigating the effect of dyadic interaction on reasoning, metacognition, attitudinal polarization and confirmation bias.
His doctorate in urban educational planning was earned at Morgan State University in 1994. He also has a B.A. and M.A. in Political Science from Edinboro University where he completed an internship with the late U.S. Senator John Heinz.
Yaksick is currently an assistant professor of Criminal Justice and Psychology at Mercyhurst Universty North East campus.
For more than a dozen years, Yaksick worked as a television journalist at several NBC and CBS network affiliates throughout the northeast. His primary assignments surrounded crime, urban, government and investigative stories. His major markets included Pittsburgh and Hartford, Conn.
He also worked in Erie, Johnston and at WBRE from 1994-97.
He maintains permanent residences in Old Forge and at Mountain Lake in Bear Creek.