Presentations

I was delighted at the opportunity to present my work at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) conference in Chicago in February, 2026. In this work, we used a coordinated data analysis (CDA) approach to examine trajectories of sense of purpose across seven longitudinal datasets. Across these large and diverse datasets (N = ~31,000), we used linear and quadratic growth models and included several covariates (i.e., gender, education, relationship status, and health conditions). Across datasets, we found that sense of purpose generally peaks during midlife, particularly around the 50s, and then declines into older adulthood. We found that education and relationship status consistently predicted higher purpose across the lifespan. Conversely, baseline age and health conditions were less consistent predictors. Moreover, gender did not significantly predict purpose across the lifespan. 

In this oral presentation, I share my research project with Dr. Moslet at the UC Davis annual Center for Brain and Mind psychology conference. In three studies we examine White Americans' policy support for minoritized groups. 

In this poster presentation, I share my research project with Dr. Ariel Mosley at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology conference in Denver in February, 2025. In two studies we examine White Americans' policy support for minoritized groups. We hypothesized that a high-status minority group focus will increase zero sum thinking (beliefs that one group come at the expense of others) and prototypicality threat (concerns about the changing identity or status of the dominant group), which will reduce support for minority civil rights. The results confirmed the hypotheses, those who viewed the high-status minority group focus had decreased support for minority civil rights. Zero sum thinking but not prototypicality threat mediated the relationship between group focus and support for minority civil rights. In follow-up work we will investigate how minoritized groups respond to the same stimuli. 

In this poster presentation, I share my independent study project at the 2024 UC Davis Undergraduate Research Conference. In this work, we identified 12 measures from existing literature that have been used to assess generativity and ego integrity. We used artificial intelligence to identify identical or very similar items that were repeatedly administered to participants in the Rush Memory and Aging Project. In follow-up work, we will test the psychometric properties of this scale (test re-test reliability, discriminate validity, convergent validity). In addition, to investigating the association between generativity/ ego integrity and a range of health outcomes, such as incident dementia and mortality risk.