by Kim Lamb Gregory
When CSU Channel Islands (CSUCI) Assistant Professor of Psychology Peter Krause graduated
from Santa Paula High School, he had to decide between studying the stars or becoming
one.
“I have always had two passions,” Krause said. “One was the natural sciences and astronomy and the other was theater.”
After attending CSUCI and graduating with a degree in Psychology in 2014, Krause found a way to pair his penchant for scientific inquiry with the skills of human expression he uses for theater. Krause entered the field of psycholinguistics, which is the study of how the brain connects with speech. Krause’s most recent work, for example, concerns the boundary where the intent to say something becomes the spoken word—those physical and non-verbal cues people give before they actually say what they’re thinking.
"Cognitive science weaves together bits of these interests in a way that, for me, is the perfect marriage of 'hard' and 'soft' disciplines,” Krause said.
Krause joined the faculty as a Psychology lecturer in 2019 and became a tenure track professor in 2022. He believes there is an advantage for alumni who return to their alma mater to continue their careers.
“I had existing relationships with some faculty members in the department, so it made it less difficult to start feeling a sense of community,” he said. “And Santa Paula is my home. I always wanted to come back here.”
Although he was a native son of Santa Paula, after graduating from high school in
2001, he attended a private college in Minnesota for a year, but it was not a good
fit. So he returned home and began working as a technical writer while indulging his
love of theater.
He worked with the Santa Paula Theater Center, which is “an incredible community theater,” where he had worked in high school. He was cast in “A Long Day’s Journey into Night” at the Ojai Arts Center Theater and at the former Camarillo Skyway Playhouse in which he played the title role of “Mr. Roberts.”
“I wanted to direct in my theater life, and I was getting leadership and teaching experience,” Krause said. “Then, in 2012, my then-romantic partner, now my wife, said ‘You’re ready.’”
Ready to go back to college.
So, at the age of 29, Krause enrolled in CSUCI as a non-traditional student and began to study psychology. He also took science courses that re-ignited his love of the natural sciences and physics, and after graduating from CSUCI, went on to earn a master’s degree and a Ph.D.in Cognitive Psychology from UC Santa Cruz, graduating in 2019.
Krause considers CSUCI Professor and Chair of Psychology Kimmy Kee-Rose a valuable mentor who was instrumental in his return to CSUCI as a full-time faculty member.
Kee-Rose believes that because Krause is an alumnus, it gives him a unique empathy for his students’ experiences.
“His unpretentious nature and genuine care make him approachable, while his sophisticated understanding of the challenges our students face allows him to offer meaningful support,” Kee-Rose said.
As a faculty member, Krause strives to help students see themselves graduate and go on to get advanced degrees if they want to.
“I want to ignite excitement about careers in psych,” Krause said. “I want to ignite the feeling of possibility that there is a place for our students in grad school. Especially our first generation and Latinx students, I want them to understand and believe that they can find themselves in grad school. They have a legitimate path to a fulfilling career with our training and our genuine letters of recommendation.”