Quantitative Developmental Scientist | Research for Meaningful Real-life Impact
I am a social-cognitive and developmental scientist who has more than 6+ years of experience designing and implementing experiments with adults and children, analyzing surveys and experimental data, creating scoping reviews, and conducting human-subjects studies from initial question through analysis and reporting.
Research work
Academic research project, but it is explained step-by-step as part of the journey: the question, my decisions, the evidence, what it suggests and why, as well as what program, or intervention "team" (or interested scientist and potential collaborator) could test next.
A controlled experiment tested whether receiving the same message through live video or voice-only communication changed children’s belief revision, spontaneous protest, and behavioral reliance during a delay-of-gratification task.
Read the full study →A project with two studies (an association + experiment) built on each other to examine how residential mobility—the frequency of moving homes during childhood—and group membership predict and shape whom children rely on to learn new information and revise existing beliefs.
Study coming nextA published scoping review documented how multiple factors predict and shape effort investment in mathematics and provide suggestions for future research, measurement of the effort investment concept, and interventions.
Read the full study →A survey of 57 psychology graduate students (originally developed by Lauren Girouard-Hallam) examined their teaching experiences, awareness of professional teaching resources, and perceived support for teaching-focused careers.
Read the full report →An interactive workshop for undergraduate psychology students that combined hands-on research activities, skill reflection, and career exploration. Students practiced behavioral coding and data interpretation, mapped their academic experiences to transferable competencies, and applied those skills to real-world job opportunities.
Read the full workshop design →Professional development
Personal reflections on finding research opportunities, developing transferable skills, and navigating an early research career.
Before earning my PhD, I struggled to find a research lab and gain experience with human-subjects research. This reflection describes the rejection, uncertainty, strategic persistence, and openness that eventually helped me secure my first external research assistant position.
Read the full reflection →About
I am a behavioral and developmental researcher with a PhD in Educational Psychology and a specialization in Human Development. My work examines how people decide what information to trust, when to revise an existing belief, and whether to continue relying on another person when outcomes are uncertain.
I became interested in these questions by studying the immediate context of an interaction. Seemingly small features—whether a speaker is visible, how a message is delivered, whether someone feels directly addressed, or which social cues are available—can change how people interpret information and respond to the person providing it. In my research, I have examined how communication channels, source characteristics, and prior beliefs shape belief revision, disagreement, engagement, and persistence.
Over time, my questions have expanded beyond the immediate interaction. I am also interested in how people’s decisions are shaped by the broader social and ecological environments in which they live. Experiences such as residential mobility, group membership, community relationships, cultural expectations, educational settings, and access to resources can influence which information people encounter, whom they learn from, and which strategies are realistic or useful within their circumstances. I therefore approach behavior at multiple levels, from cues present in a single conversation to the wider marco-environmental conditions surrounding that conversation
Across these levels, I am especially interested in variation. I do not only want to know whether an effect exists. I want to understand why the same experience may lead to different decisions among people, across developmental stages, and in different environments. This perspective has shaped my research on children’s trust and learning, social identity, residential mobility, motivation, and effort investment. Methodologically, I have led experiments, surveys, behavioral studies, and evidence syntheses across the full research lifecycle. My work has involved developing research questions, designing materials, recruiting and moderating participants, protecting human subjects, building datasets, selecting appropriate quantitative models, and communicating findings. I try to choose methods that fit the decision being studied rather than forcing every question into the same research design or outcome measure.
Although my training is academic, I also care deeply about where the evidence goes next. I enjoy translating theoretical questions into practical research decisions that can inform products, educational programs, interventions, and communication experiences. At the same time, I believe responsible research requires being clear about what a study establishes, what remains uncertain, and what should be tested before claiming broader impact.
Ultimately, I study how people make sense of information within the realities of their environments. Whether I am examining a communication cue in a brief interaction or a broader social condition that develops over time, my goal is the same: to produce careful behavioral evidence that helps explain not only what people decide, but why those decisions vary across contexts..
I study how people make decisions—from the immediate cues within an interaction to the broader social and ecological environments that shape their choices.
Research approach
I lead research across the full lifecycle while selecting methods that fit the decision—not the other way around.
Compare multiple age groups to examine whether an observed behavioral pattern appears similar across the developmental periods sampled or varies with age. Because age-related differences may reflect several developing capacities—including intention and promise understanding, attention regulation, and self-regulation—these comparisons are treated as evidence of developmental variation rather than proof of a specific mechanism unless those capacities are measured directly (Atance & Jackson, 2009; Chin & Lin, 2018; Kanngiesser et al., 2017).
Use a socioecological approach that begins by documenting whether differences are associated with features of people’s social and physical environments. I then use controlled experiments to move beyond group comparisons and test which mechanisms may explain those differences (Oishi, 2014).
Separate descriptive patterns, associations, causal findings, and speculative interpretations. I then identify what the evidence may suggest, what it cannot suggest, and what it implies for educational programs, interventions, or a specific theory development. I also clarify what still needs to be tested in the future for deepening our practical and theoretical knowledge.
Academic publications
Peer-reviewed studies.
Contact
I am interested in research opportunities that combine rigorous developmental and socioecological approaches to understand how human behavior varies across age groups and social contexts. I am especially interested in cross-cultural research, including studies in developing-country contexts, that examine how cultural, community, and environmental conditions shape people’s decisions and experiences.
Inquiry