Meet the Team

(arin.korkmaz@yale.edu)

Arin is a fifth-year Social Psychology PhD Candidate at Yale University. Arin received his B.A. in experimental psychology from the University of Michigan and his M.A. in social psychology from Koc University, Turkey. Arin’s research interests lie in the intersection of implicit social cognition, impression formation, and updating. Specifically, he is interested in evaluative complexity and ambivalence arising from the process of changing our minds about others. In his free time, he enjoys reading, experimenting with international cuisines, and scuba diving in the summer.

(emily.ritchie@yale.edu)

Emily is a fifth-year graduate student at Yale. Emily studies the nature of implicit and explicit cognition during impression formation and updating, with a particular interest in intergroup prejudice. She is currently examining how and when people incorporate new information into their impressions over time, aiming to identify the best methods and schedules by which to deliver bias interventions and persuasive campaigns. Outside of this research, Emily has gained experience in survey design, program evaluation, and qualitative data analysis. In her free time, she enjoys cooking and baking without a recipe, petting all the dogs she can, and watching Marvel movies.

(hope.harrington@yale.edu)

Hope is a fourth-year graduate student Yale. She studies people's attitudes about those who have been incarcerated or otherwise implicated in the criminal legal system. Before coming to Yale, she was the Assistant Director for the Berkeley Culture Center, a center devoted to facilitating industry-academic partnership on the study of organizational culture, at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. She received her MA in Sociology and BAH in Psychology at Stanford.

(ming.m.ma@yale.edu)

Ming is a fifth-year graduate student in social psychology at Yale. She is interested in (a) how people form impressions of individuals and groups and update them after learning new information, especially implicitly, (b) how target and perceiver characteristics (such as their social group memberships, personality, and life experiences) influence person perception, and (c) how judgments derived from people’s appearances (for example, how competent or trustworthy someone’s face looks) can fuel social inequalities and how to best reduce biases in first impressions. Ming earned her Honors BSc with high distinction in Psychology and Statistics at the University of Toronto where she worked with Dr. Nick Rule in the Social Perception & Cognition Lab. Outside of the lab, Ming enjoys taking nature walks, doing yoga, and trying out new restaurants.

(nicholas.surdel@yale.edu)

Nicholas is a fourth year PhD student in the lab. His research sits at intersection of social cognition and human-robot interaction. He is interested in how people use a robot's behavior to form stable trait attributions, both explicitly and implicitly. Outside of the lab, you can find him arguing about math and statistics with his friends.

(tony.maiolatesi@yale.edu)

Tony is a fifth-year, combined-degree graduate student in the Departments of Psychology and Public Health at Yale. Tony studies how individuals belonging to stigmatized social groups learn from their social experiences and how prior experiences with stigma influence social cognition. He is particularly interested in the social-cognitive and perceptual mechanisms that might be shaped by developmental exposure to various forms of sexual minority stigma and contribute to sexual orientation disparities in mental health and wellbeing. Before Yale, Tony received a B.A. in Psychology from Columbia University. Outside the lab, Tony enjoys hunting for the best espresso in town and binge-watching medical dramas.