New York University
SOCIAL PERCEPTION ACTION
and MOTIVATION LAB
Lab Director: Dr. Emily Balcetis
Our Team
Lab Director
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Emily Balcetis, PhD
Over the last 20 years, Emily has become one of the most sought-after voices on motivation science, researching the factors that contribute to differences in judgments and behaviors among individuals. She delivers lectures, offers training and keynoting hundreds of programs and events at secondary schools, colleges, universities, community organizations, and corporations on the social, cognitive, and motivational mechanisms that lead impact obstacles and successes as people pursue their goals. She is also a frequent commentator on media, blogs, and podcasts, delivering a voice filled with knowledge and respect for the varied challenges people face.
Lab Manager
Ashley Winegarden
Ashley recently graduated from NYU in 2022 with a major in psychology! As an NYU alumni, she is thrilled to be working as a lab manager at the SPAM Lab. She has been working in psychological research for the past three years, studying language's effects on girls' and racial minorities' scientific motivation, and plans to eventually get a Ph.D. in psychology. Ashley is currently involved in projects investigating how to reduce bias in medical school interviews, assessing the nutritional value of adolescent lunches, and using eye tracking to understand the potential for bias in video evidence used in legal proceedings.
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Communications Manager
Genna Goins
Genna is an undergraduate student double majoring in trumpet performance and psychology at NYU. She joined the SPAM Lab in spring 2022 and has since discovered interests in learning about diversity in leadership and the influences it has on young people as well as understanding the prevalence of gender disparities in media. Currently, Genna is part of the team responsible for collecting data analyzing how jurors may view video evidence in a court setting. As the lab's communications manager, maintaining its website and creating its newsletters are major parts of Genna's responsibilities. During her free time, Genna can be found crafting, attending Broadway shows, and trying different pizzas throughout New York City.
Provost's Postdoctoral Fellow
Jordan S. Daley, PhD
Jordan received his PhD in social psychology from Northwestern University, where he was a member of the Social Cognition Lab. Jordan joins the SPAM Lab as a provost's postdoctoral fellow as of fall 2023. He studies biases related to and at the intersection of social cognition, social attitudes, person-person, and intergroup relations. He uses innovative methods to go beyond the identification of bias to reveal the constructs that relate to and the mechanisms that drive psychological biases that are relevant to real-world, lived experience. In his free time, Jordan spends a lot of time following sports, listening to the latest music, and hanging out with his friends, family, and dog.
Graduate Students
Nallely De La Rosa
PhD Candidate
Nallely received her B.A. in child and adolescent development - applied developmental science from California State University Northridge in 2023. During her time as an undergraduate, she conducted research as a NIH BUILD PODER Scholar in Dr. Debbie Ma’s SIP Lab and Dr. Rika Meyer’s CATCH Lab. Following her previous work on mental health equity, Latinx and multiracial face perception, and group categorization, Nallely’s research interests broadly include stereotyping, prejudice, perception, groups, and diversity. Looking ahead to her work in the SPAM Lab, Nallely is interested in exploring how our perceptions of ourselves and others impacts our interactions and decisions.
Jenna is a first-year doctoral candidate in the social psychology program at NYU. She received her B.S. in human development (Department of Psychology) from Cornell University. Jenna is interested in how we generate inferences about others’ intentions by observing their behavior, and how these inferences are biased by our motivations, expectations, social relationships, and obligations. She is interested in how these inferences translate to judgment and action in domains including law, social justice, decision theory, and organizational behavior. In her spare time, you might find Jenna figure skating at an ice rink, watching stand-up at a comedy club, or searching for the best cannoli in NYC.
Jenna Landy
PhD Candidate
Usman Liaquat
PhD Candidate
Usman is a doctoral candidate in the social psychology program at NYU generally interested in investigation questions pertaining to prejudice, stereotyping, and collective action. Within the SPAM Lab, Usman investigates how differences in framing of gender disparity in leadership (e.g., women are underrepresented vs. men are overrepresented) affects the anger towards inequality and collective action to close the gender gap. Usman’s dissertation work examines how prescriptive and descriptive beliefs about social groups’ (e.g., immigrants, racial minorities) support for the status quo might explain the ideological divide in prejudice towards those groups. His work also draws upon System Justification Theory and the body of work on political conservatism as motivated social cognition to investigate contextual factors that might influence prescriptive and descriptive beliefs about others’ support for the system.
Jennie Qu-Lee PhD Candidate
Jennie's work expands from psychological and neuro-cognitive mechanisms of motivational biases in visual and social perception to intergroup decision-making. More specifically, she is interested in how we characterize the dynamic processes by which we perceive, understand, make decisions about people like us and those who are not, and navigate the social world. Jennie utilizes a multi-level approach to advance understanding of intergroup dynamics, and to build long-lasting interventions to combat group-based discrimination.
Ma Xiao
PhD Candidate
Ma Xiao (Ma-sh-iao) is a second-year doctoral student in the social psychology program at NYU. In 2019 received his BA in psychology and statistics from Carleton College in Minnesota. After graduation, he conducted clinical research as a post-graduate associate at Yale Psychiatry, OCD Research Clinic. His research interests focus on how factors affecting motivation and self-control processes across construal levels. He also wants to investigate motivational research in interpersonal settings to help facilitate growth and bridge performance gaps in minority students. For example, what factors change perception of “leaders” and “the successful” in minority students?
Ke (Kay) Fang
Masters Student
Kay is a master's candidate at NYU Gallatin. His research aims to understand how complex social dynamics like political polarization, normative shifts, and collective action emerge from individual-level motivational and cognitive factors. Utilizing micro-level computational cognition paired with macro-level network science, agent-based modeling, and Natural Language Processing, he is especially interested in enhancing social psychology by integrating a multilevel perspective and computational approaches. Outside of research, he savors the ritual of brewing pour-over coffee, exploring museums in NYC, and occasionally drawing.
Heather Li
Masters Student
Heather is currently pursuing a master's degree in industrial and organizational psychology at NYU. Broadly, Heather is interested in exploring the impact of gender and race stereotypes on leadership perceptions. When not in the lab, she enjoys watching Japanese anime and playing bridge games with a robot, as she has been unable to find a human teammate.
Thy Nguyen
Masters Student
Thy Nguyen is pursuing an MA in general psychology at NYU. She is eager to gain research experience in cognitive psychology. Her research interests revolve around cognitive assessments, such as IQ, how cognitive ability affects academic performance and success, and ways to improve that performance.
Nalanda Ray
Masters Student
Nalanda is a master’s student in the psychology program at NYU. She is broadly interested in the sociocultural and motivational underpinnings of person perception and biases in judgment and decision-making. As a research assistant and project lead at the SPAM Lab, she is studying the influence of cultural orientations on risk assessment and decision-making in cybersecurity. In her free time, you may find her reading books or probing into data viz codes.
Gracielle Resurreccion
Masters Student
Gracielle is currently pursuing a master's degree in psychology at NYU. She received her BS in 2020 from Old Dominion University, where she majored in biology and minored in psychology. Her research interests are in clinical psychology, neuropsychology, and social psychology. Currently, she focuses her research on impacts of gender and racial disparities on perceived leadership. In the future, Gracielle plans to pursue a doctorate degree in psychology and incorporate her work in the SPAM Lab to her future research and clinical psychology practice.
Sophia Rougraff
Masters Student
Sophia is a second-year master’s student at NYU on the forensic psychology track. Sophia's research interests are broadly focused on clinical and forensic psychology, with her thesis specifically looking at successful psychopathy in police. (Note: This is not a project of the SPAM Lab or Dr. Balcetis). Sophia received a BS in psychology and BA in criminology with a minor in sociology from the University of Florida in 2022. Outside of the lab, she enjoys cooking, watching true crime documentaries, and playing ping pong.
Bradley Tao
Masters Student
Bradley is a second-year master's student at NYU with a focus on social psychology. His current research interests engage how different cognitive mindsets and patterns of attention can influence motivation and exercise behavior. Bradley received a BA in psychology and German from the University of Michigan in 2020. Outside of NYU, you may find him attempting the very scholarly work of 1) learning how to motivate himself to exercise regularly again; and 2) finding a use for his German degree.
Research Assistants
Diya Basu
Armon Dadvand
Genna Goins
Mike Guerrero
Ainsley Hoh
Cat Howard
Bryce Lexow
Annie Mach
Miumiu Miao
Anya Pabby
Abi Rivera
Michelle Stern
Weiwei Tan
Yuming Tan
June Van De Graff
Diya Varma
Susanah Vosmik
Diana Wu
Samson Yang
Julia Yi
Lab Alumni
Abby Bisi, Engagement Manager at Prophet
David Bosch, Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychology, MA Program Coordinator at New York University
Stephanie Cardenas, Assistant Professor at Williams College
Shana Cole, Assistant Professor at Rutgers University
Jennifer Elek, Principal Court Research Associate at the National Center for State Courts
Yael Granot, Assistant Professor at Smith College
Corey Guenther, Associate Professor at Creighton University
Erin Hennes, Assistant Professor at University of Missouri
Clint Irvin, Data Scientist at Synovus
Kristyn Jones, UX Researcher at WhatsApp
David Kalkstein, Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford
Madelaine Krehm, UX Researcher at Google
Amy Krosch, Assistant Professor at Cornell University
Jeff Kukucka, Associate Professor at Townson University
Saaid Mendoza, Associate Professor at Providence College
Soyon Rim, Associate Professor at William Paterson College
Jojanneke van der Toorn, Professor at Leiden University
Website Design
Genna Goins
Armon Dadvand
Rebekah Zhang, SPAM Lab Logo Design