Molly Crockett, Lab Director
Dr Molly Crockett is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Yale University and a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics. Prior to joining Yale, Dr Crockett was a faculty member at the University of Oxford's Department of Experimental Psychology and a Fellow of Jesus College. She holds a BSc in Neuroscience from UCLA and a PhD in Experimental Psychology from the University of Cambridge, and completed a Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Fellowship with economists and neuroscientists at the University of Zürich and University College London.
HONGBO YU, POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW
Dr. Hongbo Yu is a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Psychology at Yale University. Before joining Yale, he was a Newton International Fellow at the University of Oxford. He got his PhD in Psychology from Peking University, China. During his PhD he studied the cognitive and neural mechanisms of social emotions, such as guilt, gratitude, and forgiveness, combining psychology, neuroscience, and moral philosophy. Currently he is working on a project investigating the neural and computational mechanism of moral hypocrisy. Dr. Yu will start his own lab, the Yu Emotion Science (YES) Lab, at UC Santa Barbara in Spring 2020. Get in touch if you are interested in emotion and morality.
William brady, POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW
Dr. William Brady is an NSF postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Psychology at Yale University. Before joining Yale, he got his PhD in Social Psychology from New York University. During his PhD he studied how morality spreads in online social networks combining computational methods (e.g., text-mining of social media data) and experimental methods. Currently, he is studying how moral and political engagement on social media affects the expression and experience of moral emotions.
jenifer siegel, phd STUDENT
Jenifer Siegel is a final year PhD student in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford. She holds an M.Sc in Clinical Neuroscience from University College London and a B.A in Psychology from McGill University. Jenifer studies the neural basis of moral inference, learning and decision-making with the support of a Wellcome Trust PhD Studentship and Oxford Clarendon Scholarship.
Ryan Carlson, phd student
Ryan is a second year PhD student in psychology at Yale. He received his BA in Psychology from Simon Fraser University in Canada, and then worked as a full-time RA in Jamil Zaki's lab at Stanford University. There he was involved in studies examining the role of empathy and social network dynamics in college life, as well as how peoples’ lay theories of altruism shape their own morality. Ryan’s current research utilizes behavioral experiments and neuroimaging to study social perception and social decision-making.
Vlad Chituc, Phd Student
Vlad Chituc is a second year PhD student in psychology at Yale. After graduating with a B.S. in psychology from Yale University, he spent five years at Duke University, working mainly on projects involving corruption and dishonesty in Dan Ariely's lab. Broadly, Vlad is interested in how social influences impact our moral judgements, and he is currently working on understanding our tendency to make ourselves appear morally better than we really are: why do we do it, who is prone to do it, and when do we infer that others are doing it. His work is supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.
brian D. Earp, phd student
Brian is a third year PhD student in psychology and philosophy at Yale, working with Professor Molly Crockett in the Crockett Lab and Professor Joshua Knobe in the Experimental Philosophy Lab, respectively. He is also Associate Director of the Yale-Hastings Program in Ethics and Health Policy and a Research Fellow at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford. His undergraduate degree is a B.A. with distinction in Cognitive Science from Yale, where he received the Robert G. Crowder Prize in Psychology and was elected President of the Yale Philosophy Society. He then moved to Oxford, where he took an M.Sc. in Experimental Psychology as a Henry Fellow of New College, and from there to Cambridge for an M.Phil. degree in History and Philosophy of Science as a Cambridge Trust Scholar and Rausing Award Recipient at Trinity College. Brian is interested in various topics in moral philosophy and psychology, philosophy of science, and ethics. He is also a professional actor and singer.
Megha Chawla, PhD Student
Megha is a first year PhD student in Psychology at Yale, and is co-supervised by Drs. Molly Crockett and Steve Chang. She received a BA in Psychology from the University of Southern California and a MRes in Developmental Neuroscience and Psychopathology from University College London, where she completed her master’s dissertation project examining the structural neural correlates of Internet Gaming Disorder in young adults. Prior to joining the PhD program, Megha worked as a research assistant in Dr. Ifat Levy’s lab at Yale for two years where she primarily analyzed structural and functional neuroimaging data to better understand the neuroscience of economic decision-making and learning across the lifespan. In the Crockett lab, she hopes to use neuroimaging, computational and behavioral methods to understand the psychology and neuroscience of misogyny in the contexts of moral perception and punishment.
Maureen Gill
Maureen is a first-year graduate student in the Crockett Lab. She is interested in how social cognition may shape basic processes such as learning and decision-making. Before coming to Yale, she graduated with a BA in Cognitive Science from Pomona College and served as the lab manager for both Tom Griffiths' and Tania Lombrozo's labs at Princeton.
KilliaN Mcloughlin, lab technician
Killian McLoughlin works as a laboratory technician in the Crockett Lab. Before starting at Yale, he completed an MSc in Social Data Analytics at University College Dublin, where he also studied for a BA in Philosophy. In addition, he holds a HDip in Psychology from Trinity College Dublin. Killian is interested in the application of computational methods in psychological research, in particular to questions around the impact of social media on moral and socio-political behaviours.
sophie Harrington, Lab Manager
Sophie is a visiting research assistant and lab manager in the Crockett Lab. She is in her third year of a BSc in psychology at the University of Bath. She is interested in self-serving bias and the role of social media in moral and political expression. She has previously volunteered within the social care sector for acquired brain injury, which peaked her interest in the presentation of long-term mental health disorders like psychosis.
Lab Affiliates
Luis Sebastian Contreras-Huerta
Sebastian is a PhD student in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford. He holds an MSc in Neuroscience from University of Queensland, Australia, and a BSc in Psychology from Universidad de Valparaíso, Chile. His research focuses on understanding the neural and psychological mechanisms that underlie prosocial behaviour - what environmental and internal factors affect the decisions of an agent towards the well-being of others. In order to address these goals, he uses methods from cognitive neuroscience together with computational modelling approaches and behavioural paradigms.
Anne-Marie Nussberger
Anne-Marie is a PhD student in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford. She is interested in social decision-making under uncertainty - in all sorts of varieties: uncertainty in decisions where we trade off selfish against social interests; decisions where we are deciding on behalf of others; decisions involving competing social values; and also decisions made by artificial intelligence. Anne-Marie's research involves methods ranging from game-theoretical paradigms, over scenario-based designs, to formal modeling approaches (very much as a novice). Before obtaining an MSc in Psychological Research from the University of Oxford, she completed a BSc in Psychology and a BSc in Economics at the University of Heidelberg, Germany.
Julia Marshall
Julia Marshall is a fifth year graduate student working in the Mind & Development Lab (PI: Prof. Paul Bloom) and also in the Crockett Lab. In the Crockett Lab, she works on projects related to whether and why children engage in third-party punishment. More specifically, she's interested in whether children punish others exclusively because children think a transgressor deserves it, or because children think punishment teaches a transgressor a lesson.
Undergraduate research assistants
Aden Goolsbee
Aden is a sophomore in Pierson college studying neuroscience and is premed. She is interested in social neuroscience and specifically social decision making and morality. In addition to working in the Crockett lab, Aden also is part of the Yale Magic Society and helps tutor and run science experiments with elementary school children. In her free time she loves learning magic, listening to music, and playing sports.
joshua monrad
Joshua is an undergraduate from Denmark majoring in Ethics, Politics and Economics. He is very interested in social and moral psychology, especially issues relating to the ideas of effective altruism. Currently, he is working with Brian Earp, Dr Molly Crockett and Dr Margaret Clark on a project on moral judgements in different relational contexts. In the past, he has worked on a project on potential gender biases in pediatric pain assessment.
julia hu
Julia Hu is a first-year studying Neuroscience at Yale. She collaborates with Ryan on building computational models for altruism and social decision-making. Having spent a summer working at Apple, she loves computers and technology. Now, she’s even more fascinated by the human computer and how science can decode empathy and selfishness. Outside of the lab, she can be found playing the cello with the YSO, going on nature runs, and planning her next great adventure.
lan luo
Lan is a junior in Silliman College double majoring in Economics and Psychology. He is primarily interested in behavioral economics, business economics, and social psychology. Lan is currently working with Clara and Dr. Crockett on a project that seeks to systematically map the space of morality using machine learning, computational linguistics, and cognitive neuroscience. Outside the lab, Lan is the president of the Yale Krolik Saxophone Ensemble and can also be found dancing to hip hop, listening to jazz, and playing piano.
lillian yuan
Lillian is a sophomore in Pierson College pursuing a double major in Cognitive Science and Economics, and her concentration within the Cognitive Science major is Prosocial Decision-Making. She is interested in applying behavioral economics to marketing and business to increase prosocial behavior in firms and individuals, and is very excited to be working with Billy on analyzing social media moral outrage. Outside the lab, Lillian enjoys editing for the Hippopotamus Literary Magazine, mentoring first years as a Peer Liaison for the Asian American Cultural Center, and practicing her faith in Yale Students for Christ.
wooje chang
Wooje is a junior double majoring in Mechanical Engineering and Cognitive Science. He is interested in human-robot interaction and computational morality, their application in judging inherent human behaviors, and using the principles in human-centered design. Wooje is working with Anne-Marie on effects of transparency and accuracy in using machine learning. He is also working with Meiying at Scazlab on Canine Project. In his free time, Wooje likes to work on design projects, plays games, cook, and watch hockey.
Alumni
Andreas Kappes (former postdoc, now Lecturer at City University London)
Nadira Faber (former postdoc, now Lecturer at University of Exeter)
Nicholas Sabin (former postdoc, now Associate Professor at Universidad de Santiago de Chile)
Patricia Lockwood (former postdoc, now MRC Research Fellow, University of Oxford)
Jim Everett (former PhD student, now Lecturer at University of Kent)
Filip Gesiarz (former MSc student, now PhD student at University College London)
Talia Longthorne (former lab manager, now MSc student at Radboud University Nijmegen)
Lucius Caviola (former MSc student, now PhD student at University of Oxford)
Cassandra Popham (former MSc student, now PhD student at Queen Mary University)
Elisa van der Plas (former MSc student, now PhD student at University College London)
Annayah Prosser (former lab manager, now PhD student at University of Bath)
Daniel Yudkin (former postdoc, now SBSI Fellow at UPenn)
COLLABORATORS
Matthew Apps (BBSRC Fellow, University of Oxford)
Arielle Baskin-Sommers (Assistant Professor of Psychology, Yale University)
Paul Bloom (Professor of Psychology, Yale University)
Margaret Clark (Professor of Psychology, Yale University)
Clara Colombatto (PhD student, Yale University)
Luis Sebastian Contreras-Huerta (PhD student, University of Oxford)
Ernst Fehr (Professor of Economics, University of Zurich)
Matthias Forstmann (Postdoctoral Fellow, Yale University)
S. Megan Heller (Research Associate in Anthropology, UCLA)
Wilhelm Hofmann (Professor of Psychology, University of Cologne)
Guy Kahane (Professor of Philosophy, University of Oxford)
Tobias Kalenscher (Professor of Psychology, Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf)
Miriam Klein-Flugge (Wellcome Trust Fellow, University of Oxford)
Yina Ma (Professor of Social & Affective Neuroscience, Beijing Normal University)
Michel Marechal (Professor of Economics, University of Zurich)
Christoph Mathys (Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, SISSA)
Kateri McRae (Professor of Psychology, University of Denver)
Anne-Marie Nussburger (PhD student, University of Oxford)
L.A. Paul (Professor of Philosophy, Yale University)
Robb Rutledge (MRC Research Fellow, University College London)
Julian Savulescu (Professor of Philosophy, University of Oxford)
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (Professor of Philosophy, Duke University)
Linda Skitka (Professor of Psychology, University of Illinois)
Brian Scholl (Professor of Psychology, Yale University)