Associate Professor of Psychology
Dr. Andrei Cimpian
Lab Director
PhD, Stanford University
New York University
Department of Psychology
6 Washington Place, room 330
New York, NY 10003
Email:
Phone: 212-998-3551
Graduate Student
Sophie Arnold
Email:
Sophie graduated from the University of Chicago in 2018 with degrees in Psychology and Economics before working as the Yale Social Cognitive Development Lab manager from 2018-2020. She is primarily interested in understanding the reasons behind the development of behaviors and preferences that lead to societal gender disparities like the wage gap. She is also interested in questions at the intersection of moral reasoning and group membership. Outside of the lab, Sophie enjoys playing cards, reading fiction and hiking.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. April Bailey
PhD, Yale University
Email:
In her research, April integrates social cognition with intergroup relations. Much of her work focuses on gender. In one line of work, she investigates the androcentric tendency to default to thinking of people as men. Her work also addresses other related gender and racial biases, intersectionality, person perception more generally, nonverbal behavior, moral psychology, and essentialism. In the Cognitive Development Lab, she is studying the development of androcentric bias in children and its consequences for children's psychological well-being and achievement.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Jessica Gladstone
PhD, University of Maryland
Email:
Jessica is interested in understanding the development of students’ achievement motivation and engagement. Her research has focused on three main areas: (1) how parents and teachers shape students’ motivational beliefs, values, and engagement in math and science; (2) how undergraduates' motivational beliefs and values predict their engagement in math and science courses and how later engagement may then predict their motivational beliefs and values; and (3) how students’ personality characteristics, such as grit, relate to their motivation, self-regulation, and achievement. In the Cognitive Development Lab, she is studying how we can help encourage young students' developing interest and ability beliefs in math and science.
Lab Coordinator
Natalie Hutchins
Email:
Natalie is a 2020 graduate from Franklin and Marshall College with a degree in psychology. Her prior research interests focused on differences in social learning and attention between typically developing children and children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Natalie hopes to learn more about gender stereotyping across development in her time at CDL. In her free time, Natalie enjoys playing board games, reading, and being outside.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Jillian Lauer
PhD, Emory University
Email:
Jillian is interested in the origins of gender disparities in STEM achievement and interests. Her research has examined various aspects of spatial and mathematical development between infancy and adulthood, with a particular focus on gender-linked correlates of performance in these cognitive domains using behavioral, eye-tracking, and meta-analytic techniques. She is excited to be working with the Cognitive Development Lab, where she is studying the development of gender stereotypes, including those relevant to math achievement.
Graduate Student
Rachel Leshin
Email:
Rachel graduated from Northwestern in 2015 with degrees in psychology and gender studies, and served as CDL's lab manager from 2016-2018. Rachel is primarily interested in the development of social bias and stereotyping. In CDL, her focus is on the developmental roots of gender disparities in political leadership. Outside of the lab, Rachel enjoys cooking (and eating), seeing shows, and capitalizing on NYU student discounts throughout the city.
(Primary advisor: Marjorie Rhodes)
Graduate Student
Vivian Liu
Email:
Vivian graduated from Wesleyan University with a Bachelor's degree in Psychology. She is interested in the overlap of different social identities in children and adults, the development of essentialist thought, as well as practical applications of strategies to reduce stereotyping and bias. Outside of lab, Vivian loves to bake desserts, eat desserts, and read fiction.
Graduate Student
Melis Muradoglu
Email:
Melis is interested in the cognitive underpinnings of essentialist thought and social behavior. She is also interested in explanatory processes and how they inform beliefs about social categories in children and adults.
Lab Coordinator
Natalie Toomajian
Email:
Natalie is a 2019 graduate from the University of Michigan with a degree in Biopsychology, Cognition, and Neuroscience. She's excited to work at CDL as lab coordinator and continue exploring the complexity of children's development through the lab's research. Her past research focuses include children's understanding of consciousness and conceptualization of Theory of Mind in non-human subjects. Natalie hopes to broaden her understanding of children's self-perceptions and how they impact motivation in school and social behavior. Outside the lab, Natalie enjoys reading, writing, and watching movies.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Andrea Vial
PhD, Yale University
Email:
Andrea is a social psychologist whose research seeks to illuminate the psychological underpinnings of gender disparities. Her work has examined various psychological processes whereby gender can impact workplace relations and career outcomes, such as the tendency to accommodate the preferences of other people—including their prejudices—even when we disagree with them, and the tendency to conflate leadership with masculinity. Andrea is interested in studying the development of gender stereotypes with the Cognitive Development Lab, and how they impact self-views and motivation in ways that produce and maintain gender disparities.
Lab Alumni
Former Postdoctoral Fellow (2016-2019)
Dr. Michael Barger
Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Georgia
Former PhD Student (graduated 2017)
Dr. Lin Bian
Assistant Professor, Department of Human Development, Cornell University
Former Postdoctoral Fellow (2017-2018)
Dr. Eleanor (Ellie) Chestnut
Product Manager, Textio
Former Postdoctoral Fellow (2015-2016)
Dr. Matthew Hammond
Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor), School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Former PhD Student (graduated 2017)
Dr. Zachary Horne
Assistant Professor of Psychology, Arizona State University
Former PhD Student (graduated 2017)
Dr. Larisa Hussak
Director, Strategic Research, EAB
Former PhD Student (2017-2019)
Jilana Jaxon
Master's student, Mental Health Counseling, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine
Former Postdoctoral Fellow (2017-2019)
Dr. Ryan Lei
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Haverford College
Former PhD Student (graduated 2016)
Dr. Erika Salomon
Data Scientist, Mobile Medic
Former PhD Student (graduated 2018)
Dr. Daniel Storage
Teaching Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Denver
Former PhD Student (graduated 2016)
Dr. Shelbie Sutherland
Associate, BEworks (Toronto)
Former Lab Coordinator (2018-2020)
Molly Tallberg
PhD student, Cornell University
Former PhD Student (graduated 2017)
Dr. Christina Tworek
Vice President, Data Science, HarrisX
Former Postdoctoral Fellow (2017-2019)
Dr. Jussi Valtonen
Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland