Our Team
Lab Director
Yarrow Dunham is an associate professor of psychology and cognitive science and the director of the SCD Lab. He completed his doctorate at Harvard University working with Mahzarin Banaji and Susan Carey, and has previously taught at Princeton and UC Merced. Outside the research world, his interests include exploring the great outdoors, the NBA, growing things in the garden, and an unhealthy obsession with his cat Zoe.
Lab Manager
Alina Dau is the joint lab manager for the Social Cognitive Development Lab and the Computational Social Cognition Lab. She earned her B.A. in Psychology from Bowdoin College, where she worked on projects ranging from behavioral inhibition to enemyship and moral outrage. Alina also conducted research on resource allocation at Boston University, and her interests broadly center on procedural fairness and children's development of a moral self-concept. Outside of work, she enjoys watercolor painting and pickleball.
Graduate Students
Emily Gerdin is a seventh-year Ph.D. student working with Yarrow Dunham and Paul Bloom. Broadly, she is interested in children’s moral and social development. More specifically, she is fascinated by religion as a social category. Her work with Professor Dunham considers whether and why religions (as well as other belief-based categories) operate differently from other kinds of social categories. Outside of the lab, Emily is an avid baker and board game enthusiast.
Sifana Sohail is a fifth-year Ph.D. student at Yale. She is interested in examining people's understanding of existing societal inequalities, and how they relate to other aspects of social cognition. In particular she is interested in focusing on the intersection between judgements of fairness and intergroup relations. Outside of research, Sifana usually enjoys traveling and is notably passionate about food.
Aaron Baker is a third-year PhD student working on the cognitive mechanisms underlying social interactions. He is interested in identifying how we employ different strategies for understanding behavior depending on the information available to us, as well as how these strategies emerge throughout development and vary across societies. Outside of the lab, Aaron likes to talk about about traveling and occasionally do it.
Aarthi Popat is a second-year PhD student in the Social Cognitive Development Lab and the Leonard Learning Lab. Before coming to Yale, she received her B.A. in Psychology from Stanford University and worked as a lab manager at UCSD. Aarthi's research in the Social Cognitive Development Lab focuses on how children's stereotypes about social categories (e.g., race, gender) contribute to backfiring effects of equity efforts. Eventually, she hopes to design interventions to mitigate these effects. In her free time, Aarthi loves to spend time outside and watch too much Below Deck (Down Under).
Research Assistants
Ella Gartz is a rising Junior at the University of Michigan, studying Statistics and Cognitive Science. For Summer 2025, she is a Research Assistant in the SCD lab, interested in learning about how children and adults make judgments about fairness as well as decisions about economic inequalities. Outside of work, she loves to read, cook, play tennis, and travel.
Hannah Kim is a senior at UT Austin and a 2025 summer research intern. Her research interests lie in social cognition, morality, and human sexuality. Right now, she is particularly interested in how people rely on role expectations in social hierarchies to evaluate others, and how deviations from these roles — especially in the context of sexual behavior — shape their moral judgments and perceptions of others’ social status. In her free time, she likes to discover new restaurants, spend time outdoors, and play the violin.
Abby Scott is a junior research assistant, and this is her second year with the lab. She is interested in how children perceive social groups and how they interact with each other in different ways. Outside of the lab, Abby is on the Yale Women’s Rugby team and enjoys finding new music and going on backpacking adventures.
Morgan Alverson is a research assistant at the SCD lab and is a second year undergraduate at Yale College pursuing a degree in Psychology. She is interested in examining the ways children come to understand and process complex moral reasoning. Outside of the lab, she loves working with children, thrifting and up-cycling clothing, and playing the violin.
Sandi Myint is a second year at Yale hoping to major in Cognitive Science. She is very excited to learn more about developmental psychology, especially around children, regarding how they develop their values and how they process social life in the world. Outside of the lab, she likes to cafe-hop, try new dishes, doodle around, and cook with friends.
Lab Alumni
Former PhD Students
Dorsa Amir Assistant Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience at Duke University; Director of the Mind & Culture Lab.
Richard Ahl Senior Research Analyst, Spark Admissions.
Gina Roussos Social & Behavioral Science Administrator, The National Institutes of Health.
Ashley Jordan Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Director of the Development of Intergroup Social Cognition Lab.
Alexander Noyes Postdoc at Boston College.
Xin (Kate) Yang Senior UX Researcher, Google.
Carlota Saumell (Visiting PhD Student; University of Barcelona) Scientific Project Manager at Fundació Sant Joan de Déu.
Pinar Aldan Postdoc at Boston University.
Former PostDocs
Katherine McAuliffe Associate Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience at Boston College; Director of the Cooperation Lab.
Jonathan Schulz Assistant Professor of Economics at George Mason University; Co-Director of the Historical Psychology Project.
You-jung Choi Assistant Professor of Brain & Cognitive Sciences at Southern Illinois University; Director of the Social Cognitive Development Lab.
Antonia Misch Substitute Professor for Developmental & Clinical Child Psychology at the University of Kiel.
Lisa Chalik Assistant Teaching Professor of Psychology at Skidmore College; Director of the Developing Minds Lab.
Nadia Chernyak Associate Professor of Cognitive Science at UC-Irvine; Director of the Development Social Cognition Lab.
Jan Engelmann Associate Professor of Psychology at UC-Berkeley; Director of the Social Origins Lab.
Fan Yang Research Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago; Director of the Human Nature and Potentials Lab.
Former Lab Managers
Shaina Coogan (2013-2016); Data Analyst at Vetern’s Affairs Puget Sound.
Helena Wippick (2016-2018); Research Associate at MEF’s Child and Family Policy.
Sophie Arnold (2018-2020); PhD Student at NYU.
Katie Vasquez (2020-2021); PhD Student at University of Chicago.
Mackenzie Briscoe (2021-2023); PhD Student at Harvard University.
Rui Zhang (2023-2025); PhD Student at Brown University.
Former Research Assistants
Alexander Dieball (University of Göttingen, Germany)
Nathan Vasquez (University of Chicago)
Shirley Duong (University of New Haven)
Martha Fitch Little (University of Bath)
Trini Chan (University of Bath)
Laura Rodriguez (University of Bath)
Ragna Nass (University of Bath)
Allison Bradshaw (Yale University)
Gabi Seo (Yale University)
Anna-Katrine Sussex (University of Bath)
Kayleigh Parsons (Cardiff University)
Chloe Young (Cardiff University)
Ilayda Orhan (Yale University)
Rodney Tompkins (UC-Davis)
Fareeda Adejumo (Amherst College)
Natanya Rosen (Jewish Theological Seminary & Columbia University)
Grace Williams (Cardiff University)
Vanessa Llamas (ESI PREP Postbac)
Josie Davies (Cardiff University)
Erin Hewald (Cardiff University)
Yaseen Ismail (University of Bath)
Misha O’Keeffe (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Brandon Rickett (Bucknell University)
Maria Macias (University of Houston)
Bethany Hermann (Whitman College)
Sophie Peterson (Vanderbilt University)
Chloe Rice (University of Bath)
Thomas King (Cardiff University)
Christiana Restucci (Quinnipiac University)
Santiago Calderon (Yale University)
Khushi Sharma (Georgia Tech)
Ellen Habteyonas (Vanderbilt University)
Juliet Weschke (CUNY Hunter College)
Zein Saleh (University of Nebraska-Lincoln)
Kate Kasoff (Colby College)
Saskia Moossun (Cardiff University)
Ira Ovalekar (Cardiff University)
Kennedy Wolf (Yale University)
Sanaa Williams (Yale University)
Ana Sofia Viejo (Yale University)