Principal Investigator
Kurt Hugenberg is the director of the Stereotyping, Prejudice, & Facial Expression Lab at Indiana University. He is a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. His research focuses on how perceivers' stereotypes, prejudices, and prejudice-related motives influence how we categorize, perceive, and understand others. For more information, check out his CV or contact him directly at khugenb@indiana.edu.
Postdoctoral Scholar
Ryan Hutchings is a postdoctoral scholar working for Profs. Kurt Hugenberg and Victor Quintanilla. His research focuses primarily on person perception, prejudice, and social cognition. In particular, his research investigates how people visually represent social groups and strategies to change biased visual representations of groups. For more information, please see his CV.
Graduate Students
Mattea Sim is a fifth year graduate student working for Dr. Kurt Hugenberg. Her research focuses primarily on person perception, prejudice, and dehumanization. In particular, her research investigates how perceivers rely on others' physical cues (e.g., bodies) and social identities to make inferences about mental, physical, and emotional sophistication. For more information, view her CV.
Erin Freiburger is a second year graduate student working for Dr. Kurt Hugenberg. Her research interests center on intersectional biases in person perception. Often, her work investigates overlapping representations of race and gender, and the downstream consequences of intersectional biases for intergroup relations. For more information, check out Erin's CV.
Victor D. Quintanilla is a second year graduate student in the lab and also a law school professor. Victor's research investigates civil justice design, access to justice, and legal education by drawing on theory and methods within the field of psychological science, including experiments conducted with judges, lawyers, law students, and members of the public. His research seeks to create, implement, and evaluate social psychological interventions to promote productive mindsets and enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion and the student experience and performance throughout the pipeline of legal education. Victor also harnesses psychological methods to examine how unrepresented persons are socially constructed and stereotyped into pro se parties, and he designs and evaluates social psychological interventions to improve their experiences and outcomes. Victor is thrilled about exploring these research lines within IU's social psych graduate program and to be part of the Hugenberg lab! For more information, checkout Victor's law school website here!
Affiliated Graduate Students
Tessa Benson-Greenwald is a sixth year graduate student advised by Dr. Amanda Diekman. She is interested in the factors that lead people to perceive goal opportunities as available in their majors and careers whether that be through contextual cues or mindsets that encourage people to think about their roles differently. She is also interested in the consequences of perceiving particular careers, and the individuals in them, as being motivated by power versus prosociality. For more information, check out Tessa's CV.
Mansi Joshi is a fifth year doctoral candidate in social psychology working primarily with Dr. Amanda Diekman. Her research examines how people from different backgrounds make decisions to enter, stay, or leave STEM roles. Their programs of research broadly ask: 1) Who shapes these roles, 2) How are roles perceived or experienced by different groups, and 3) Who does it matter for? For more information, check out Mansi's CV.
Caitlyn Jones is a third year graduate student working under Dr. Mary C. Murphy. Predominantly, she is interested in investigating the ways in which social identities influence interaction, specifically in organizational or academic settings. This interest involves research surrounding stereotyping, prejudice, fixed versus growth mindset, and social identity threat.
Research Assistants
Mark Waldron With an incessant fascination of people and what causes their behavior, and shapes their feelings, motives, and personality, Mark Waldron decided to return to school and pursue a degree in Psychology after spending 20+ years in the professional workforce. He is keenly interested in the the Jungian concept of Enantiodromia and how it is manifested in social constructs, ideologies, and group dynamics. Mark hopes to continue his academic pursuits into graduate school.
Catherine Qing is a senior double majoring in Psychology and Informatics. Her research interests include barriers to success for marginalized groups and stereotypes and implicit biases. She also enjoys exploring the intersection of technology and social issues, as well as technology and health issues. She is currently working on her honors thesis on social pain perceptions of low-SES individuals and how these judgements influence the accommodations that low-SES students are afforded in higher education. For more information, check out Catherine's resume.
Ritu Gangadhara (she/her) is a junior undergraduate student working as a research assistant in Dr. Kurt Hugenberg's lab. She is double majoring in neuroscience and psychology with minors in history and chemistry. She is interested in how stereotype and prejudice affects historically excluded populations, specifically in STEM spaces and especially within medicine. She is also interested in CRT and stereotype threat within Asian American populations. She hopes to attend medical school in the future to focus on intersectionality in medicine, and aims to expand on cultural literacy in the medical field.
Madeline Kosins (she/they) is an undergraduate senior majoring in Psychology, obtaining a Certificate of Global French, and minoring in Counseling and Gender Studies. They are interested in understanding the experience of intersectionality in a psychological setting, with an emphasis on the impacts of stereotypes and prejudice faced by minority groups. Upon graduating, they hope to begin volunteer work for a non-profit organization focusing on social justice work for members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Ryan Haugh is an undergraduate senior majoring in Psychology with a certificate in the Psychology of Business. He plans to extend his studies into graduate school where plans to study IO Psychology. He is interested in the way people interact within the workplace, specifically relating to the discriminatory factors within peoples jobs. He hopes to take this knowledge and apply psychology to the business world in the future.
Abby Novotny (she/her) is an undergraduate junior majoring in Psychology and Criminal Justice with a minor in Studio Art. She is interested in the intersection of psychology and criminal justice. Specifically, the many interactions between psychology and the law, restorative justice, stereotypes and prejudices, legislation, and social organization interest her the most. She hopes to further her studies in graduate school and expand upon the literature on psychology and the criminal justice system.
Lab Alumni
Jason Deska is a Postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto working with Dr. Nick Rule. He investigates questions related to social perception and cognition to inform our understanding of how and when people are subjected to differential judgment and treatment. For more information, check out Jason's website or contact him directly at jason.deska@utoronto.ca.
Paige Lloyd is an Assistant Professor at the University of Denver. Her work investigates the determinants and consequences of person perception, with an emphasis on implications for social inequality and discrimination. For more information, check out Paige's website or contact her directly at paige.lloyd@du.edu.
Don Sacco is an Associate Professor at the University of Southern Mississippi. His research interests fall into three major categories: 1) causes and consequences of social inclusion and exclusion, 2) face perception and nonverbal behavior, and 3) how personality and motivation influence cognition and perception. For more information, check out Don's website or contact him directly at donald.sacco@usm.edu.
Pirita See is an Assistant Professor at South Dakota State University. She specializes in group-based biases involved in person perception (e.g., intergroup face processing, stereotyping, dehumanization, pro-social intentions). For more information, check our Pirita's website or contact her directly at pirita.see@sdstate.edu.
John Paul Wilson is an Assistant Professor at Montclair State University. He is currently focused on how person perception can inform our thinking about social issues and the criminal justice system. For more information, check out John's website or contact him directly at wilsonjoh@montclair.edu.
Ed Shriver is a Lecturer at Emmanuel College. He specializes in prejudice, intergroup relations, and social justice. For more information, contact him directly at edwin.shriver@gmail.com.
Steven Almaraz is an Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department at East Los Angeles College. Although he now spends most of his time educating future psychology enthusiasts, his research interest focuses on how people use perceptual cues (e.g., faces, bodies, movement) to make inferences about the trustworthiness, dominance, sexuality, or mental sophistication of the people around them. Often, his work investigates whether these perceptual inferences are affected by social group memberships and can impact real-world intergroup disparities. For more information, check out Steven's CV and personal website.
Alicia Macchione
Apoorva Sarmal
Julia Henry
Max Bublick
Daphne Castro Lingl
Kathleen Stanko
Alexa Sucharetza
Austin Mills
Richard Liu