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Leah Somerville
Harvard University http://andl.wjh.harvard.edu What does your research focus on? My research focuses on the study of human emotion, especially factors that explain variability in emotional responding across people, in social and nonsocial contexts, and across the developmental course. In the last few years, I’ve focused on asking how brain development during the second decade of life relates to common changes in emotional processes and social cognition in adolescents. To inform these issues, my work combines behavioral, psychophysiological and brain imaging approaches. What drew you to this line of research and why is it exciting to you?
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Christopher Olivola
Carnegie Mellon University https://sites.google.com/site/chrisolivola/ What does your research focus on? I am generally interested in (human) judgment and decision making. If I had to narrow it down a bit further, I would say I am particularly interested in understanding (e)valuation: How (and why) do we assign value to things? I’ve tried to tackle this question in several ways; for example, by identifying normatively puzzling patterns of valuation, by designing new value-elicitation methods, and by contributing to the ongoing development and testing of a new decision-making theory (Decision by Sampling). What drew you to this line of research and why is it exciting to you?
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Thomas Olino
University of Pittsburgh www.dascpitt.org/content/olino-thomas-phd What does your research focus on? My primary line of research examines the role of appetitive motivation in the development of unipolar mood disorders using multiple types of methodologies, including, self-reports, behavior, and functional neuroimaging. While there is well-established literature on appetitive motivational deficits in individuals with depression, it is less well known if this pattern of functioning is present before the onset of the disorder. Thus, my work focuses on children and adolescents without a personal history of depression, but who are at high risk for developing depression.
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Masi Noor
Canterbury Christ Church University, United Kingdom www.canterbury.ac.uk/social-applied-sciences/applied-social-sciences/staff/Masi-Noor/ What does your research focus on? I am a social psychologist and my work focuses on intergroup relations, including the dynamics of conflict, cooperation, and help between groups. For instance, why do conflicting groups sometimes engage in competition over their victimhood following violent conflicts? How do people of one group decide which, of many, needy groups to donate their money to following humanitarian disasters?
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Derek Evan Nee
University of California, Berkeley http://despolab.berkeley.edu/denee/ What does your research focus on? My research focuses on elucidating the mechanisms of working memory and cognitive control. These are means to a broader understanding of the higher-level cognitive processes that are emblematic of human intelligence. My approach is to understand the mind through the brain and I leverage neuroimaging to accomplish this. What drew you to this line of research and why is it exciting to you? My initial foray into research was in artificial intelligence.
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Mary C. Murphy
The Mind and Identity in Context Lab at Indiana University www.mindandidentityincontext.com What does your research focus on? My research focuses on the science of diversity. My students and I develop and test theories about how people’s social identities and group memberships interact with the contexts they encounter to shape their thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and motivation. I study how the contexts that surround us shape our basic psychological and physiological processes, ultimately informing us about the value of our group memberships.
