.png)
POST-DOC
PHILIP PARNAMETS - NYU Social Psychology Postdoctoral Fellow
Philip completed his PhD in cognitive science at Lund University and has spent two years as a postdoc with the Emotion Lab at Karolinska Institutet. His research is grounded in a broad interest in the cognitive and computational mechanisms underlying preference change, decision making and learning, especially in the moral domain. In the Social Identity and Morality lab his work focuses on dynamic models of social learning about moral agents and of moral choices generally. Philip spends his spare time creating, listening or dancing to electronic music.
New York University
Director: Jay Van Bavel
MEET OUR TEAM
Thank you for your interest in the Social Identity & Morality Lab!
We have lab meetings every Friday. Please contact us if you are interested in attending lab meetings or presenting your research. If you are interested in joining the lab, please see the Join Us page for more information.
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
JAY VAN BAVEL is an Associate Professor of Psychology & Neural Science at New York University, an affiliate at the Stern School of Business in Management and Organizations, and Director of the Social Identity and Morality Lab. To read Jay's official bio in full, go to his NYU home page. Here is his unoffical bio:
After giving up on his dream to become a professional hockey player, Jay became the first person in his family to graduate from college. It took him three years of his undergraduate degree before he realized that research was conducted at universities (despite attending the third-largest research university in Canada). After his first year of graduate school at the University of Toronto, Jay's Ph.D. advisor (Ken Dion) tragically passed away and he was orphaned until a new assistant professor (Wil Cunningham) adopted him. A year later, his new advisor was poached by The Ohio State University and Jay moved to Columbus, Ohio as a visiting scholar. Jay completed most of his Ph.D. requirements (orals, proposal, etc) in various hotel lobbies during the annual SPSP convention since it was the only time and place he could get all his committee members in the same room. In his first year as an assistant professor, Jay had ten papers and three grants rejected and zero publications. His son and daughter were born in his first two years as a faculty member and ensured that he maintained the appearance and intellectual capacity of a zombie until he went up for tenure.
POSTDOC
STEVE RATHJE : NYU Social Psychology Postdoctoral Fellow
Steve Rathje is a postdoctoral researcher with the Social Identity and Morality Lab, funded by grants from the Russel Sage Foundation, the AE foundation, and a Synergy Scholar Grant with the Center for the Science of Moral Understanding. He will be receiving his PhD from the University of Cambridge (Trinity College) as a Gates Cambridge Scholar, and he received his Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Stanford University. Steve studies polarization and inter-group conflict on social media using field experiments, lab experiments, and computational social science methods.
PHD STUDENT
CLAIRE ROBERTSON : NYU Social Psychology Ph.D. Student
Claire received her B.A. in Psychology from Kenyon College in 2017 and then worked for two years as a research specialist in the Princeton University Baby Lab. She began her Ph.D. in Social Psychology at NYU in 2019, and since then has spent her time researching the use of moral and emotional content in news stories and voting behavior. She is also interested in misinformation, political partisanship, and moral decision making. When she’s not in the lab (or, more recently, working in her bed), you can find her wandering through the amazing farmers markets in NYC, writing down recipes for her friends, or reading anything she can get her hands on.
PHD STUDENT
ALI JAVEED : NYU Social Psychology Ph.D. Student
Ali received his Bsc with honors in psychology from the University of Toronto in Spring 2021, and began his Ph.D. in Social Psychology at NYU in Fall 2021. Ali's research draws on moral psychology and affective science to examine topics of political polarization, collective action, and extremism. He is driven to create interventions to combat misinformation, partisan animosity, and promote political action. Ali’s research interests are informed by time as an independent photojournalist, and can likely be found at political actions across NYC if not glued to a whiteboard.
LAB MANAGER
YIFEI PEI
Yifei is a Junior Laboratory Associate in the Social Identity and Morality Lab and the Collective Cognition Lab at NYU. While still refining her research interests, she is broadly interested in developmental and social psychology, as well as neuroeconomics and neuroaesthetics. Outside the lab, Yifei enjoys reading magazines, watching Broadway shows, exploring coffee shops and building legos. Yifei received a BA in Cognitive Science with honors and in Mathematical Economics from University of Pennsylvania in 2022.
ACTIVE LAB AFFILIATE
RACHEL LESHIN : NYU Social Psychology Ph.D. Student
Rachel received her BA from Northwestern University in 2015, where she double-majored in psychology and gender studies. Her interests lie at the intersection of social and developmental psychology; her research primarily focuses on children's construction of social categories and the environmental inputs that shape this process. Her primary advisor is Marjorie Rhodes, and she collaborates with the Social Identity & Morality Lab on a line of research examining the influence of parental political ideology on children's conceptions of fairness and morality.
ACTIVE LAB AFFILIATE
KAREENA DEL ROSARIO: NYU Social Psychology Ph.D. Student
Kareena received her B.A. from San Francisco State University and worked at UCSF as the lab manager for Wendy Berry Mendes prior to beginning her Ph.D. in Social Psychology at NYU. Kareena is broadly interested in studying the effects of emotion and moral judgment on dyadic and group interactions. Her primary advisor is Tessa West and she collaborates with the Social Identity & Morality Lab to explore the physiological underpinnings of moral emotion. In her free time, Kareena enjoys reading magical realism and trying out new restaurants.
ACTIVE LAB AFFILIATE
KIMBERLY DOELL : NYU Social Psychology Postdoctoral Fellow
While at the University of Geneva, Kim completed her MSc and Ph.D. in neuroscience, and then spent 3 years as a postdoc focusing on environmental and affective psychology. Her research broadly combines components of social cognition, reward processing, and sustainable decision making, with the overarching goal of investigating and promoting pro-social and pro-environmental behaviours. In the Social Identity and Morality Lab, Kim’s research aims to understand how various levels of social identity alter the way people process climate change information and influences their environmental behaviors. Kim enjoys spending her free-time outdoors. This could include relaxing in the park, hiking, or even scuba diving.
ACTIVE LAB AFFILIATE
CLARA PRETUS : Postdoctoral Researcher at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Clara obtained her Ph.D. at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, where she specialized in Social Neuroscience, and her MSc in Neuroscience at King’s College London. Her research focuses on intergroup conflict, extremism and parochial altruism using neuroimaging techniques. She is now visiting the Social Identity and Morality lab, where she is conducting research on the role of moral-emotional language in online content diffusion. During the pandemic she has been daydreaming about being able to travel again.
ACTIVE LAB AFFILIATE
DIEGO REINERO : Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Princeton University
Diego Reinero is a Presidential Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Psychology Department at Princeton University. He is also a Synergy Scholar with the Center for the Science of Moral Understanding at UNC Chapel Hill. His interdisciplinary research investigates how people's moral and political views change through conversations and social networks, and why such changes can be so difficult. He employs a wide range of methods including group-based behavioral experiments and big data analytics. Diego holds a Ph.D. in social psychology from New York University and a B.S. in both psychology and business from Skidmore College. When not doing science, Diego continues his dreams of playing professional soccer and plays in competitive leagues around NYC.
ACTIVE LAB AFFILIATE
ELIZABETH HARRIS : William J. Henrich Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania
Elizabeth received her PhD in the Social Identity and Morality Lab in 2022 and her HBSc from Western University in 2017. She is now the William J. Henrich Postdoctoral Fellow in the Annenberg Center for Advanced Study in Communication (ACASC) at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) and the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her interdisciplinary research investigates how people's social identities, particularly partisanship, affect their belief in and sharing of misinformation on social media. She is also interested in metascience, particularly in regards to the generalizability and communication of science.
LINA KOPPEL: Postdoctoral Researcher at Linköping University
Lina is a postdoctoral researcher at Linköping University, where she received her PhD in Medical Science in 2020. Her research mainly focuses on the role of affect in everyday decision making, such as how pain and touch influence risk taking, intertemporal choice, and prosocial choice. She is also interested in metascience and, more recently, pro-environmental behavior. Lina is a visiting researcher in the Social Identity and Morality Lab and Collective Cognition Lab at NYU.
VISITING SCHOLAR
CHIARA JUTZI: Ph.D. Candidate at Salzburg University
Chiara is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Department of Psychology at Salzburg University (Austria) and the doctoral college "Imaging the Mind". She studied at the University of Salzburg, Universidad de Granada and University College London. Her research focusses on the affective reactions to psychological threats such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Specifically, she is interested in interventions targeting detrimental defensive reactions to threat. These range from wise interventions to better designing immediate spatial environments. She leads a re-design project creating “study places” on campus in Salzburg. Chiara will visit our lab in the spring of 2023.
VISITING SCHOLAR
RESEARCH ASSISTANTS
-
Alejandro Calvo
-
Anees Goparaju
-
Armon Dadvand
-
Christina Capozzoli
-
Diána Hughes
-
Gabrielle Sylvester
-
Kinda Shammas
-
Lily Hafez
-
Madison Akles
-
Nalinda Wanikpun
-
Shamauri Rivera
-
Yara Kyrychenko
-
Yishu Lu
LAB ALUMNI
To see a full list of lab alumni and their current positions, see this spreadsheet.
Former Postdoctoral Fellows
Kim Doell
Philip Pärnamets, Senior Research Specialist, Karolinska Institutet
Victoria Spring, Associate Editor, Nature Reviews Psychology
Andrea Pereira, Data and Research Manager, Child Helpline International; Lead Scientist, minds ge
Peter Mende-Siedlecki, Professor, University of Delaware
Shona Tritt, Faculty Lecturer, University of Toronto
Sharareh Noorbaloochi, Vice President, Goldman Sachs
Oriel FeldmanHall, Professor, Brown University
Geraldine Coppin, University of Geneva
Andreas Kappes, Professor, City University of London
Christian Kaul, Chief Operating Officer, Stillfront Group
Tobias Brosch, Professor, University of Geneva
Former Primary Ph.D Students
Elizabeth Harris, Postdoc, University of Pennsylvania, Annenberg Center for Advanced Study in Communication
Anni Sternisko, Consultant, Streitgut
Diego Reinero, Postdoc, Princeton University
Billy Brady, Professor, Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management
Jennifer Ray, Learning and Talent Measurement Manager, Takeda Pharmaceutical Center
Julian Wills, UX Researcher, Facebook
Leor Hackel, Professor, University of Southern California
Jenny Xiao, Professor, University of Washington-Tacoma
Former Secondary Ph.D Students
Kate Thorson, Professor, Barnard College
Daniel Yudkin, Postdoc, University of Pennsylvania
Rima-Marie Rahal, Researcher, Tilburg University
Ana Gantman, Professor, City University of New York-Brooklyn College
Hannah Nam, Professor, Stony Brook University
Yael Granot, Professor, Loyola University Chicago
Lisa Chalik, Professor, Yeshiva University
Amy Krosch, Professor, Cornell University
Kyle Ratner, Professor, University of California-Santa Barbara
Former Affiliates and Visiting Scholars
Madalina Vlasceanu, Assistant Professor of Psychology, New York University
Jesper Rasmussen, PhD Student, Aarhus University
Former MA Students
Simran Kaur, Survey Research Analyst, Cornell University
Nicole Nowotny, Executive Assistant, Radius Ventures, LLC
Nick Ungson, Visiting Asst. Professor, Albright College
Alea Skwara, PhD Student, University of California-Davis
Yogesh Raut, PhD Student, New Mexico State University
Justin (Duke) Lieberknecht, Associate Vice President of Marketing, American Homes 4 Rent
Former Lab Managers
Katie Brown, TBD
Sarah Grevy Gotfredsen, MS Student, Columbia University
Sophie (Wharton) Smith, Insight Analyst, LinkedIn
Jillian Swencionis, PhD, Postdoc, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Former Honors Thesis Students
Rachel Tang, TBD [lab mentor: Victoria Spring]
Sarah Grevy Gotfredsen, MS Student, Columbia University [lab mentor: Diego Reinero & Philip Pärnamets]
Jena Sohn, TBD [lab mentor: Philip Pärnamets]
Anna Balchunas, Writer/Editor, Development Office, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center [lab mentor: Diego Reinero]
Stephanie Leung, PsyD Student, Pace University [lab mentor: Billy Brady]
Jonathan Rosenthal, MD Student, NYU School of Medicine [lab mentor: Leor Hackel]
Jayson Dorsett, Research Specialist, University of Pennsylvania [lab mentor: Jennifer Ray]
Bosi Chen, PhD Student, San Diego State University / University of California-San Diego [lab mentor: Leor Hackel]
Jessica Dubin, Chemistry Teacher, Brooklyn Frontiers High School [lab mentor: Daniel Yudkin]
Julia Schaus [lab mentor: Jenny Xiao]
Natasha Thalla, PhD, UX Researcher, Facebook [lab mentor: Daniel Yudkin]
Leslie Berntsen, PhD, Lecturer, University of Southern California [lab mentor: Amy Krosch]
Bram Schumer, JD, Lawyer, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP [lab mentor: Jay Van Bavel]
Ian Kurth, Senior Associate, Alta Capital Group [lab mentor: Jay Van Bavel]
Former RAs
Anastasiia Korolevskaia, Honors Student, Lawrence Ian Reed lab, New York University
Christy Cheng
Cheryl Man, incoming MS Student, Cornell University
Andrew Gruber
Lauren Hyoseo Yoon, Undergraduate, Northwestern University
Cara Reschke, Associate UX Researcher, Match.com
Bayla Zohn
Natasia Pelowski
Maggie Liu
Sahar Hafezi
Brienna Carter, Undergraduate, Yale University
Matt Leipzig, Research Assistant, Stanford University
Prianka Koya, PhD student, UCLA
John Andrew Chwe, PhD Student, NYU
Yi Zhang, PhD Student, University of Southern California
Zoe Kleiman, Neuroendocrine Unit Research Intern, Massachusetts General Hospital
Simone Van Taylor, Research Network Program Associate, Harmony Labs
Jino Kwon, MA Student, New York University
Emily Korf, Research Assistant, CSP
Suraiya Allidina, PhD Student, University of Toronto
Dominic Burkart, Software Engineer/Scientist
Mikaela Kane, MsEd Student, Hunter College
Siri Loken, MD Student, University of California-Irvine School of Medicine
Ashley Castro, PhD Student, DePaul University
Xi Shen, PhD Student, Cornell University
Shreyas Ganesh, Senior Analyst, Hearts & Science
Marc Simon, The Trevor Project
Meslissa Huang
Eugene Jaw, Senior Data Associate, Publicis Sapient
Poorvi Iyer, PhD Student, London School of Economics
Melanie Corwin, Digital Crisis Services Coordinator, The Trevor Project
Ryan Salim, PhD Student, St. John's University
Nick Ichien, Graduate Student, University of California-Los Angeles
Heba Allam