About Me

I am an experimental psychology PhD candidate at UC San Diego. Broadly, I am interested in humans as a social species. We devote years of our lives to care for the youngest among us; we protect our closest social partners from what seem to be possible fates. My research focuses on how people develop to recognize and understand these kinds of phenomena.

My recent work centers on the developmental emergence of intuitive theories––implicit, theory-like frameworks we use to make sense of the world, which commonly mischaracterize how things really work. I focus on two theories that often intersect: an intuitive theory of people as social agents, and an intuitive theory of the physical world. The first lets children richly interpret social behaviors, motivations, and relationships; the second lets children decipher and predict features of the physical world, from the cost of an action to the purpose and possible danger of holding a knife. I am interested in how the integration of these theories allows even children to understand the relationships and behaviors that keep people safe from danger.

Before UCSD, I completed my BS in psychology with biological emphasis at UC Davis, then worked as a research assistant at Yale University and as a lab manager at UC Santa Barbara. As a graduate student, I am funded through the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program, the UCSD Jacobs Endowed Fellowship, and the UCSD Morgan Endowed Fellowship.