We will be recruiting PhD students to start in Fall 2026. Please see below:
What Do We Study?
Our lab investigates healthy self-development from developmental, social psychological, and neuroscientific perspectives. We ask: How do social experiences and brain processes shape the way adolescents and young adults build and sustain a healthy sense of self? We focus on processes such as self-esteem, reflected self-efficacy, self-disclosure, self-belief updating, and egocentric bias. We also study how brain networks, such as the default mode and affective networks, interact with social experiences to support self-related socioemotional processes. Here is a recent talk from Dr. Leehyun Yoon.
How Do We Study It?
- Participants: adolescents and emerging adults (ages 10–25)
- Social experiments in controlled settings, combined with qualitative interviews
- Large-scale open longitudinal neuroimaging datasets that include data on social experiences, brain development, and socioemotional functioning
- Novel fMRI paradigms targeting underexplored self-related processes
- Computational modeling to capture self-belief updating processes
Who Would Be a Great Fit?
- Interested in the intersection of psychological and neural processes
- Passionate about self-related and socioemotional processes
- Value a developmental perspective — people change and are shaped by time and experience
- Curious, inquisitive, collaborative, and perseverant
- Thrive in a close-knit lab community that balances collaboration with independent work
- Enjoy scientific writing and data analysis, and motivated to further develop those skills
How Can You Apply?
- Psychology PhD — Deadline: Nov 15 (Program Info)
- Cognition and Neuroscience PhD — Deadline: Dec 1 (Program Info)