While the majority of our graduate students have backgrounds in psychology, many majored in anthropology, biology, education, English, history, linguistics, mathematics, philosophy, and sociology as undergraduates. The graduate students come from all parts of the United States as well as many foreign countries. Those completing a doctoral degree usually take from five to six years. The titles of some of the dissertations completed give an idea of some of the research created in the programs.

Natalie Brezack, "Does active experience support children's learning from instruction?"; 2022.
Research associate in learning and technology, WestEd.

Haerin Chung, "Investigating the connection between action and action perception in infancy"; 2022
Postdoctoral associate, Boston University.

Gisella Diaz, "Distinct neural signals reveal a dissociation between storage of individuated items and spatial attention"; 2022.
Product data analyst, Jellyvision.

Elizabeth Huppert, "Flexible Fairness: How Context Shapes Social Preferences"; 2022.
Postdoctoral fellow in Dispute Resolution Research Center at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management.

Yagmur Kisa, "A communicative account of gesturing when speaking is difficult"; 2022.
Postdoctoral reseearcher at Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

Ryan Lange, "Feature-level effects in object-substitution masking of color and tilt"; 2022.
Social Sciences Teaching Fellow, University of Chicago.

Madeleine Oswald, "Giving Number Words a Hand: The Role of Iconic Number Gestures in Supporting Children's Math Language Development"; 2022.
Early Childhood Learning Specialist, University of Chicago.

Nancy Pantoja, "Child Math Achievement: Relation to Self-Relevant Math Attitudes, Parent Math Attitudes, and Parent Talk": 2022.
User experience researcher, Renaissance Learning.

Jaelyn Peiso, "Divisive Normalization and the Flexible Resolution of Ambiguity"; 2022.

JP Riggle, "Sex Differences in the Circadian and Ultradian Rhythms of Mice"; 2022.
Postdoctoral scholar in Physiology, University of California, San Francisco.

Frederica Rockwood, "Individual differences in social motivation"; 2022.
Social Sciences Teaching Fellow, University of Chicago.

Kathryn Schertz, "How the physical environment influences thought content: The role of naturalness and visual features"; 2022.
Postdoctoral researcher, University of Michigan.

Colleen Wohlrab, Psychophysiology of Motivation: Competing Social and Bodily Needs"; 2022.
Consultant, ClearView Health Partners.

James Waller, "The use of role shift with classifier constructions in American Sign Language"; 2021.
Postdoctoral researcher, Gallaudet University.

Bernett, Deena "Memory for Arithmetic Facts Learned by Rote Memorization versus via Algorithmic Computation" 2021.
Data scientist, Amplify.

Hirsch, Gabriella "Playing Hard to Get: The Effects Of Anodal tDCS on Memory Performance as a Function of Task Difficulty and Sleep Quality" 2021.
Research manager, JP Morgan Chase

Lu, Jenny "Emerging deictic systems shaped by language, modality, and social interaction" 2021.
Postdoctoral researcher, University of California, Berkeley

Sheriff, Andrew "Coordinated respiratory and brain rhythms during spatial navigation and learning" 2021.
Postdoctoral researcher, Northwestern University Medical campus

Slezak, Emily "Grouping ambiguous neural representations: Stimulus vs. percept-level cues" 2021
Postdoctoral researcher, University of Washington

Burke, Nicole "The Cognitive Value of Social Relationships: An Argument for Social Network Theory" 2021.
Postdoctoral researcher, New York University

Carrazza, Cristina "Parent attitudes about young children's math learning: Connections to parent math support and child math outcomes" 2021.
Research scientist, National Opinion Research Center

Hakim, Nicole "Characterizing Working Memory Delay Period Activity" 2021.
Postdoctoral researcher, Stanford University

Onishi, Kenneth "Transkingdom Interactions Regulate Behavior Across the Lifespan" 2021.
Associate manager, Business development and licensing, Polsky Center

Vollman, Elayne "Learning Beyond Accuracy: Evidence for Worked Examples as a Support for Students’ Proportional Reasoning Gains" 2021.
Visiting Instructor, Lake Forest College

Jenifer, Jalisha "Calculated Avoidance: The Role of Effort-Based Valuations in the Relation Between Math Anxiety and Math Avoidance" 2021.
Postdoc, Barnard College

Hall, Casey "Gesture as a Bridge Between Non-Declarative and Declarative Knowledge" 2020.
Game Tester, Cards Against Humanity

Lau, Becky Ka Ying "The Effect of Nativenesss of Language on Social Norm Adherence" 2020.
User Experience Researcher, Facebook.

Herts, Julianne "Adult Math Anxiety: Relation to Math Performance and Adult/Child Math Interactions2020.
User Experience Researcher.

Meidenbauer, Kim  "The Role of Preference in the Affective and Cognitive Benefits of Nature" 2020.
Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Chicago

Barakzai, Anam "Which Side Are You On? How Friends Balance Competing Obligations of Alliances and Morality" 2019.
User Experience Researcher, RingCentral

Cardenas-Iniguez, Carlos "A critical examination of the impact of social stratification and the environment on brain development and mental health" 2019.
Teaching Fellow in the Social Sciences, University of Chicago

Faig, Kelly "The Psychophysiology of Social Behavior: A Focus on the Behavioral Immune System" 2019.
Postdoc, Duke University

Foster, Josh "Alpha-band oscillations track spatial priority in the human brain" 2019.
Postdoc, Boston University

Gijssels, Tom "Action language understanding reflects bodily and social experience" 2019.

Kardan, Omid "Scale-free brain activity as a measure of cognitive effort and learning potential" 2019.
Postdoc, University of Chicago

Layden, Elliot "Functional Connectivity Signatures of Interhemispheric Coordination and Vocal Learning in the Zebra Finch Brain" 2019.
Data Scientist, Data Discovery, and Decision Science (D3) Department at Allstate

Schaeffer, Marjorie "Understanding How Key Socializers' Attitudes Influence Children's Math Performance;" 2019.
Assistant Professor, St. Mary's College

Mangelsdorf, Heather "Using Parasympathetic Activity to Gain Insights into Gesture and Learning" 2018.
Visiting Assistant Professor, North Central College, Naperville, IL

Berkowitz, Talia "The influence of parent math anxiety on children's early math input and knowledge" 2018.
Postdoc, University of Chicago

Bregent, Jessica "The Intuitive Jurisprudence of Punishment" 2018.
Jerome Hall Postdoctoral fellow, Indiana University Law School

Chen, Yung-Tsen "Effect of Aging Stereotype Activation on Older Adults' Memory and Neural Activity" 2018.
Teaching Fellow in the Social Sciences, University of Chicago

Adam, Kirsten "Characterizing the limits of visual working memory" 2018.
Postdoc, University of California, San Diego

Brookshire, Geoffrey "Temporal predictions in perception and language comprehension" 2018.
Postdoc with Ole Jensen, University of Birmingham, UK

Dimitroff, Stephanie "Physiological responses to the distress of others" 2018.
Postdoc with Jens Pruessner, University of Konstanz, Baden-Württemberg,Germany

Doss, Manoj "The Effects of Recreational Drugs on Emotional Episodic Memory" 2018.
Postdoc with Frederick Barrett and Roland Griffiths, Johns Hopkins University

Hu, Peter "Solving Problems With Insightful Thinking" 2018.
Researcher at the FAA

Pitt, Benjamin "Metaphorical mappings of time and number: How cultural experience shapes cognitive universals" 2018.
Postdoc, University of California (Berkeley)

Smith, Karen "Individual Differences in Young Children’s Responses to Stress: The Role of Perception" 2018.
Postdoc with Seth Pollak, University of Wisconsin

Sutterer, David "Tracking feature-specific memory representations with oscillatory brain activity" 2018.
Postdoc, Vanderbilt University

Yap, Defu "Hidden iconicity in gesture, sign and spoken language" 2018.Research Fellow, NTU Nanyang Technical University, Singapore

Henry, Andrea "The Role of Math Anxiety and Situational Anxiety in Math Performance" 2017.
User Experience Specialist, Centralis

Gibson, Dominic "Gesture’s Role in Bridging Symbolic and Nonsymbolic Representations of Number" 2017.
Teaching Fellow in the Social Sciences, University of Chicago

Gyurovski, Ivo "Predictors and Implications of Personal Finance Management" 2017.
Visiting Assistant Professor, Hamden-Sydney College

Hayakawa, Sayuri "Why using a foreign language changes our choices" 2017.
Postdoc with Viorica Marian, Northwestern University

Sattizahn, Jason "Error-Related Brain Activity, Anxiety, and Cognitive Performance" 2017.
Research and Development, Sony PlayStation

Chang, Hye Sang "The role of anticipation in the relation between math anxiety and math performance" 2017.
Postdoc with Vinod Menon, Stanford University

Rosen, Rebecca "What's in a voice? Effects of dialect perception on activation of crime stereotypes" 2017.
Research Analyst, Zubi Advertising Systems

Yoder, Keith "The Neuroscience of Justice Sensitivity" 2017.
Postdoc with Jean Decety, University of Chicago

Cable, Erin Circadian influences on the functional regulation of the reproductive and immune systems of Siberian hamsters (Phodopus sungorus); 2016.
Adviser, Northwestern University

Congdon, Eliza Learning mathematics through action and gesture: Children’s prior knowledge matters; 2016.
Visiting Assistant Professor, Williams College

Filippi, Courtney From action to abstraction: The development of early social cognition; 2016.
Postdoc with Danny Pine, NICHD

Gray, Stephen Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation and Episodic Memory Retrieval; 2016.
Consumer Insights Analyst, Facebook

Klos, Serena Operation and Interaction of the Descending Control and Ascending Sensory Pathways in Audition; 2016.

Kotabe, Hiroki Disorder, Naturalness, and Their Influence on Aesthetics and Behavior; 2016.
Postdoc with Marc Berman, University of Chicago

Li, Tianyi The Impacts of Interracial Contact on Face Perception and Social Cognition; 2016.

Liberman, Zoe The origins of social categorization: Infants' inferences about social relationships and shared social attributes ; 2016.
Assistant Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara

Necka,Elizabeth Intrasexual Vigilance in Women: Social, Cognitive, and Neuroendocrine Mechanisms; 2016.
Postdoc with Lauren Atlas, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health at the National Institute of Health

Novack, Miriam Perceiving Movement as Representational Across the Lifespan; 2016.
Postdoc with Steven Franconeri, Northwestern University

Wang, Wei Grouping in resolving chromatic interocular-switch rivalry; 2016.
Intern working on applied human vision projects, Samsung

Schroeder, Juliana "A Self-Other Motivational Asymmetry: People Overlook Others' High Level Needs Compared to Their Own" 2015.
Assistant Professor, Berkeley Haas Management in Organizations

De Jesus, Jasmine "Food as a cultural input: Children's differential consumption, evaluations, and beliefs about others' food choices" 2015.
Postdoc with Julie Lumeng, Susan Gelman, and Henry Wellman, University of Michigan

Fan, Samantha "The social benefits and consequences of early multilingual exposure" 2015.
MAPSS Johnson Lecturer, University of Chicago

Garvin, Laura "Children's Ability to Learn and Reason About Preferences" 2015.
Researcher, Customer Experience Index, Forrester Research

Howard, Lauren "The Development of Memory in the Context of Human Actions" 2015. 
Assistant Professor, Franklin and Marshall College

Van Hedger, Kathryne "Time Perception: Interoception and Psychophysiological Effects" 2015.
Postdoc with Harriet De Witt, University of Chicago

Van Hedger, Stephen "Individual differences in the formation and maintenance of absolute pitch categories" 2015.
Postdoc with Marc Berman and Howard Nusbaum, University of Chicago

Wynn, Ashley "Easier Said than Done: Exploring Majority Group Members’ Resistance to Multiculturalism" 2015.
User Researcher II, PROS

Flaherty, Molly "The Emergence of Argument Structure in Nicaraguan Sign Language" 2014.
Visiting Assistant Professor, Swarthmore College

Majka, Elizabeth "Interpersonal Synchrony: A Tool for Regulating Core Social Needs?" 2014.
Visiting Faculty at the College of Elmhurst

Park, DaEun "Motivational Frameworks among Children in Early Elementary School" 2014.
Postdoc with Angela Duckworth, University of Pennsylvania

Frederick, Donald "Olfactory System Dynamics: The Role of Tasks and Oscillations" 2014.
Co-Founder of a Biotech Start-up

Brooks, Neon "Movements for Doing, Thinking, and Speaking: The Relationship Between Motor Experience and Gesture in Novice Mental Abacus Users" 2014.
Postdoc with Liz Spelke, Harvard Univeristy 

Zhou, Haotian "More than a Blood Pump: A Psychological Investigation of Folk Conception of the Heart" 2014.
Postdoc with Nick Epley, University of Chicago Booth School of Buisiness 

Applebaum, Lauren "Encouraging analogical reasoning during STEM learning: The role of cues to comparison" 2014.
Postdoc with Marcia Linn, University of California (Berkeley) 

Brawn, Timothy "Sleep-dependent memory consolidation in starlings" 2014.
Postdoc with Daniel Margoliash, University of Chicago 

Kontra, Carly "Leveraging Somatic Experience for Learning" 2014.

Allen, Elizabeth "Role for working memory in resolving perceptual ambiguity" 2013.
Lead User Experience Researcher, Prosper

Bradley, Sean "Interactions Between Food Intake and Biological Rhythms in Siberian Hamsters (Phodopus sungorus)" 2013.
Postoc with Timothy J. Bartness at Georgia State University

Goyle, Arina "The crossed-categorization approach to reducing racial prejudice: An investigation of the mechanism and methodological limitations of a novel mixed-race paradigm" 2013.
SSRS, Social Sciences Research Firm

Light, Alysson "Regulating the Uncertain Self: Consequences of Self-Uncertainty for Goal Pursuit in the Face of Temptations" 2013.
Postdoc with Grainne Fitzsimons, Duke University

Shockley, Elizabeth "The Case for Existence Biases" 2013.
Postdoc at the University of Nebraska (Lincoln)

Porges, Eric "Individual Differences in Peripheral and Central Physiological Responses to Observed Violence" 2013.
Post-doctoral fellow in the Center for Cognitive Aging and Memory, University of Florida

Cervantes, Sasha "Information Processing Style and Memory Accuracy: The Roles of Activation and Monitoring" 2013.
Assistant Professor, Governor's State University

Kampf-Lassin, August "Molecular Mechanisms of Seasonal Timekeeping" 2013.

Dautel, Jocelyn "Children's Reasoning About Language as a Social Category" 2013.
Lecturer, Queen's University, Belfast, Ireland

Mulqueeny, Kevin "Imagine Me and You: The Impact of Imagination and Physical Motion on Reading Speed for Concrete Transfer Sentences in First, Second, and Third Person Perspectives" 2013.
Education Research Scientist at Reasoning Mind

Ramirez, Gerardo " The Cognitive Mechanism Underlying the Math Anxiety-Performance Relationship in Early Elementary School" 2013.
Assistant Professor, UCLA

VanderMeer, James "On the Contrary: Reciprocity and Reflection in Conflict Escalation" 2013.
Insight Strategy Group

Beaudoin-Ryan, Leanne "What children's hands tell us about right and wrong: The role of gesture in non-spatial concept acquisition" 2012.
Researcher/Consultant at the University of Chicago Urban Education Institute

Hunsicker, Margaret "Nominal Constituent Development in Nicaraguan Homesign" 2012.
Director of Research and Evaluation, Horizons for Homeless Children

Khetarpal, Naveen "Conceptual structure and semantic variation for spatial relations" 2012.
Postdoc with Susan C. Levine, University of Chicago

Baltazar, Nicole "Social Influences on Children's Emotion Perception" 2012.
Research Analyst at Slover Linett Strategies

Ben-Ami Bartal, Inbal "Helping a cagemate in need: a rodent model of empathically motivated pro-social behavior" 2012.
Miller Research Fellow, University of California- Berkeley

Gunderson, Elizabeth "Individual differences in early number knowledge: variation in the learner and the learning environment" 2012.
Assistant Professor, Temple University

Bloomfield, Tiffany "Recursive Vocal Pattern Learning and Generalization in Starlings" 2012.
Software Test Engineer, Epic Systems

Echols, Stephanie "Racially biased attention to pain predicts group differences in empathic concern and helping behavior" 2012.

Heald, Shannon "Tuning the targets of speech production: Effects of articulatory and perceptual experience on speech production" 2012.
Postoc with Howard Nusbaum, University of Chicago

Lyons, Ian "A sense of order: How ordinality shapes the relations between symbolic numbers, basic quantity, representation, and mathematics" 2012.
Postdoc with Daniel Ansari, Western Ontario University.

Mattarella-Micke, Andrew "The Role of Approximate Number in Adult Arithmetic" 2012.
Postdoc with Bruce McCandliss, Vanderbilt University

Sim, Jessica "Good Groups, Good Members, Good Selves: Exploring How Individuals Harness the Utility of Groups" 2012.
Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

Skelly, Laurie "The Brain Basis of Emotion Perception and Empathy in Criminal Psychopathy" 2012.
Data scientist at Datascope Analytics, LLC

Kang, Para "Binding the Features of Continuously Changing Visual Stimulus" 2012.
Postdoc with Dingcai Cao, University of Illinois at Chicago

Wong, Jessica "Ageist Stereotype Threat Effects on Memory and Metacognition in Older Adults" 2012.
Quantitative Analyst at Insight Strategy Group