Office Hours
By Appointment
Education
Ph.D., Purdue University
M.S., Purdue University
B.S., University of Massachusetts Boston
About Me
Daniel W. Oesterle, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Auburn University and Director of the Perfect Storm Laboratory. He earned his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychological Sciences from Purdue University in 2026 and completed his clinical psychology residency at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.
Broadly, Dr. Oesterle’s research seeks to understand the psychological and contextual mechanisms that increase risk for sexually violent and aggressive behavior, including sexual assault, sexual intimate partner violence, and child sexual abuse. His work examines how dispositional vulnerabilities—including personality pathology, antagonism, narcissism, psychopathy, and impulsigenic traits—interact with cognitive processes such as attitudes, beliefs, and normative misperceptions, as well as disinhibitory states, including acute alcohol or other substance intoxication, to influence the emergence of sexual aggression. A central goal of this work is to move beyond static risk markers toward identifying the dynamic mechanisms and person-by-situation processes through which risk propensity is translated into harmful behavior. Ultimately, his work aims to clarify not only who is at risk for perpetrating sexual violence, but when, how, and under what conditions that risk is most likely to manifest—and how those processes can be disrupted before harm occurs.
Lab(s)
Perfect Storm Lab
Areas of Expertise
Sexual Violence, Etiology & Risk, Personality & Personality Pathology, Cognitive Mechanisms, Alcohol & Behavioral Disinhibition