People

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, contact him directly at khugenb@indiana.edu. 

Graduate Students

Mattea Sim is a second year graduate student working for Dr. Kurt Hugenberg. Her research focuses primarily on how facial characteristics, body size, and racial or ethnic identities can impact the way people are evaluated and treated. For more information, check out Mattea's CV. 

Steven Almaraz is a fifth-year graduate student. His research interests focus primarily on how people use perceptual cues 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 membership and can impact real-world intergroup disparities.​ For more information, check out Steven's CV and personal website here. 

Mansi Joshi is a second year graduate student working for Dr. Amanda Diekman. Her general research interests are centered around gender and racial issues in education. Her research focuses primarily on how how face-based traits of real and hypothetical scientists signal different opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). She is also interested in cultural similarities and differences between life and physical science majors in how they navigate their role in STEM. 

Research Assistants

Alicia Macchione is an undergraduate senior majoring in Psychology and Gender Studies. Her research interests are centered around understanding the development and implications of stereotypic attitudes and biases in certain contexts. She is interested in understanding the minority experience--in particular the intersection of gender, ethnicity, and race, and its implications for identity development and educational attainment. For more information, check out Alicia's CV.

Apoorva Sarmal is a research assistant interested in studying the underlying mechanisms of stereotyping and prejudice. Specifically, she is interested in why people of color are dehumanized and how this affects minority experiences in the real world. She is also interested in investigating how cultural assimilation affects people of color and how cultural assimilated individuals are perceived. For more information, check out Apoorva's CV. 

Julia Henry is an undergraduate senior majoring in Psychology, with an interest in clincal work. Broadly, she is interested in understanding how drugs affect an individual's brain/body, in addition to exploring the effect of one's childhood upbringing on their later development. Julia is also interested in further exploring topics such as depression and other mental illnesses. 

Lab Alumni