
Professor of Psychology
Lab Director
PhD, Stanford University
New York University
Department of Psychology
6 Washington Place, room 330
New York, NY 10003
Email: andrei.cimpian@nyu.edu
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AndreiCimpian
Phone: +1-212-998-3551

Graduate Student
Sophie Arnold
Email: sa5850@nyu.edu
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
Eliana Avitzour
PhD, Tel-Aviv University
Email: eliana.avitzour@nyu.edu
Eliana is interested in the psychological mechanisms that lead to gender-biased behavior in adults, and in the origins of gender stereotypes in children. One strand of her research focuses on implicit and explicit gender stereotypes (of adults) and their different roles in predicting gender discriminatory behavior towards children. The other deals with the origins of gender stereotypes in children focusing on objectification – specifically, the role of physical appearance in defining the identify of young girls. In both strands of research, she is interested in exploring the social phenomena as well as in finding evidence-based methods to alleviate them.

Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. April Bailey
PhD, Yale University
Email: ab9490@nyu.edu
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.

Visiting Scholar
Dr. Mark Bowker
PhD, University of St. Andrews
Email: markalanbowker@gmail.com
Mark is a philosopher by training, working on issues at the intersection of philosophy of mind/language and psychology. He is particularly interested in the connection between language, stereotypes, and prejudice, as well as the relation between philosophical and psychological descriptions of mind and language.

Lab Coordinator
Natalie Hutchins
Email: natalie.hutchins@nyu.edu
Natalie is a 2020 graduate from Franklin & 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.lauer@nyu.edu
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.leshin@nyu.edu
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: vl845@nyu.edu
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.muradoglu@nyu.edu
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: nt2190@nyu.edu
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.
Lab Alumni

Dr. Michael Barger
Former Postdoctoral Fellow (2016-2019)
Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Georgia

Dr. Lin Bian
Former PhD Student (graduated 2017)
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, The University of Chicago

Former Postdoctoral Fellow (2021)
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam

Dr. Eleanor (Ellie) Chestnut
Former Postdoctoral Fellow (2017-2018)
Quantitative Researcher, Amazon

Dr. Jessica Gladstone
Former Postdoctoral Fellow (2019-2021)
Assistant Professor (starting January 2023), Department of Educational Psychology, University of Illinois

Dr. Matthew Hammond
Former Postdoctoral Fellow (2015-2016)
Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor), School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

Dr. Zachary Horne
Former PhD Student (graduated 2017)
Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Psychology, School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh

Dr. Larisa Hussak
Former PhD Student (graduated 2017)
Senior Director, Strategic Research, EAB

Jilana Jaxon
Former PhD Student (2017-2019)
Master's student, Mental Health Counseling, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine

Dr. Ryan Lei
Former Postdoctoral Fellow (2017-2019)
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Haverford College

Dr. Erika Salomon
Former PhD Student (graduated 2016)
Lead Data Scientist, eSpark Learning

Dr. Daniel Storage
Former PhD Student (graduated 2018)
Teaching Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Denver

Dr. Shelbie Sutherland
Former PhD Student (graduated 2016)
Senior Associate, BEworks (Toronto)

Molly Tallberg
Former Lab Coordinator (2018-2020)
PhD student, The University of Chicago

Dr. Christina Tworek
Former PhD Student (graduated 2017)
Director, Strategic Solutions Methodology & Advanced Analytics, Gerson Lehrman Group, Inc.

Dr. Jussi Valtonen
Former Postdoctoral Fellow (2017-2019)
Researcher, Department of Psychology and Logopedics, University of Helsinki, Finland

Dr. Andrea Vial
Former Postdoctoral Fellow (2018-2020)
Assistant Professor of Psychology, New York University Abu Dhabi