Education

Alicia Limke-McLean, Ph.D., earned her Bachelor of Science in psychology from Southern Nazarene University in 2000 and her Master of Science in psychology from the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma, in 2002. She earned her Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (with a focus in Social-Personality Psychology) from the University of Oklahoma in 2005 (at the age of 26) under the direction of Dr. Carolin Showers. She recently returned to the student side of the classroom and completed a Master of Legal Studies from Arizona State in 2022 with certificate areas in Criminal Law and Conflict Resolution. She enjoyed the program so much that she is continuing her education in legal studies as a Juris Doctorate candidate (Class of 2025) at the University of Oklahoma.

Limke-McLean began her professional career as a Research Assistant/Statistical Research Specialist at the Oklahoma Criminal Justice Resource Center (OCJRC) where she worked from 1998 to 2002. During that time, she also served as an Interviewer/Assistant Site Coordinator for the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) project through the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) from 2000 to 2002. From 2005 to 2007, Limke-McLean worked as an Associate Director in Special Education Services for the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE-SES). She left the OSDE-SES to pursue a full-time career in higher education in 2007.

Limke-McLean served as the director of research in the graduate programs in counseling at Southern Nazarene University from 2003 to 2014 and as an associate professor in the Department of Psychology and Counseling there from 2012 to 2014. In 2014, she returned as an associate professor to the University of Central Oklahoma (where she was an assistant professor from 2007 to 2012) and was promoted to professor in 2019. Since beginning her full-time career in academia, Limke-McLean has chaired dozens of thesis committees; sponsored numerous grants and research projects; published (on average) a manuscript each year; presented hundreds of projects at national, regional, and state conferences; and taught 12 to 18 hours each semester.