Sara C. Wrenn, Ph.D.

Dr. Sara Wrenn grew up in Wilmington, NC. She received her A.B. in Psychology from Duke University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Social Psychology from North Carolina State University. Before coming to Bennett College in 2008, she taught courses in statistics and research methods at North Carolina State University and Meredith College. She also taught educational psychology courses for North Carolina State University’s NC Teach program for lateral entry teachers and was an instructor for Duke University’s Talent Identification Program. During the summers of 2015 and 2016 Dr. Wrenn traveled to Saudi Arabia to work as a Writing/Presentation Coach for the Saudi Research Science Initiative (SRSI) summer STEM program for academically gifted high school girls at the University of Dammam.

In addition to teaching, Dr. Wrenn has worked as a research site coordinator for a multi-site initiative documenting the prevalence of HIV infection and risk behaviors among substance abusers, as a survey/protocol development consultant, as a survey/research protocol development consultant, and as an occupational analyst on the O*Net team that rebuilt the Department of Labor’s occupational task lists. Her research has touched on varied topics, including the effects of victim impact evidence on jurors’ sentencing decisions, children’s affective social competence, dispositional and situational antecedents of causal thinking, working memory capacity and self-control, and the academic implications of atypical performance on the Stroop color-word task.

Dr. Wrenn served as Chair of the Bennett College Curriculum Committee from 2010-2016, and as President of the Bennett College Faculty Senate from 2017-2019. She has served as Dean of Faculty since summer 2022.