Professor of Psychology
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.
Visiting Scholar
Eliana Avitzour
PhD candidate, Tel-Aviv University
Email:
Eliana is interested in the psychological mechanisms that lead to gender-discriminatory behavior in STEM fields. Her research focuses on primary school teachers’ implicit and explicit gender stereotypes, on the different roles that each of them has in explaining gender-biased behavior, and on finding ways to reduce such biased behavior.
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. Katharina (Kate) Block
PhD, The University of British Columbia
Email:
Kate is broadly interested in how stereotypes about the social groups we are members of (e.g., gender) influence how we think about ourselves (our self-concept). A key focus of Kate's work has been on understanding how cultural stereotypes shape men's communal values (i.e., how much do they value helping and caring?) and their participation in communal roles (are they interested in becoming nurses, social workers, or teachers? do they want to participate in childcare?). In the Cognitive Development Lab, Kate is trying to understand how and when children learn stereotypes that link communion to femininity, and how learning these stereotypes might affect boys' and girls' social functioning and career aspirations.
Visiting Scholar
Dr. Mark Bowker
PhD, University of St. Andrews
Email:
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.
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
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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 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.
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
Dr. Eleanor (Ellie) Chestnut
Former Postdoctoral Fellow (2017-2018)
Product Manager, Textio
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)
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, TrueRoll
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)
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