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Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab

Department of Psychology
 

Director (Principal Investigator)

Professor of Social Psychology in Society

Prof Sander van der Linden is Professor of Social Psychology in Society in the Department of Psychology and a Fellow in Psychological and Behavioural Sciences at Churchill College, University of Cambridge. Prior to Cambridge, van der Linden held academic...

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Graduate Students

PhD Candidate

Cecilie Traberg is a PhD Candidate in Psychology funded by the ESRC and Harding Distinguished Postgraduate Scholarship. She completed her MPhil in Psychology at the University of Cambridge, received a MSc in Social Cognition (with Distinction) from UCL, and holds a First Class Honours BSc...

PhD Candidate
Lab Manager

Yara is a PhD Candidate, Lab Manager, and Gates Scholar at the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab. Originally from Kyiv, Ukraine, she graduated summa cum laude from New York University with honors double-major in mathematics and psychology. As a PhD candidate co-advised by Sander van der...

PhD Candidate
Lab Manager

Miriam is doing her PhD in Psychology at the University of Cambridge funded by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the German Academic Scholarship Foundation. Originally from the UK and Germany, she graduated from the University of Oxford with a First-Class Honours degree in...

PhD Student

Malia is studying the psychological drivers of support for authoritarian governance, and is funded by the Harding Distinguished Postgraduate Scholars Program. She began her studies at Harvard where she obtained a BA in psychology with Highest Honors, having completed an empirical research thesis...

PhD Student

Neil is a PhD student in Psychology at the University of Cambridge. Originally from London, he graduated with a first-class degree and award-winning dissertation in Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London. Following this, he was awarded a Masters degree in Social and Cultural...

MPhil Student

Rachel is an MPhil student in Psychology at the University of Cambridge. She graduated from the University of St Andrews with a First-Class joint Honours in International Relations and Psychology. Prior to Cambridge she worked at The Behavioural Insights Team as an Advisor, where she implemented...

Postdoctoral Research Associates

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Charlotte A. Kukowski is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab and the Conservation Science Group (Department of Zoology). Charlotte received a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Zurich (2022), a M.Sc. from the University of Zurich (2019), and a B....

Affiliated Faculty

Lecturer in Psychology and Security at King's College London
Affiliated Lecturer in Psychology

Jon Roozenbeek is a Lecturer in Psychology and Security at King's College London, Department of War Studies. 

Jon works on the psychology of intergroup conflict and (...

Postdoctoral Research Affiliate

Now a Junior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford (New College), Rakoen served as the first Lab Manager of the CSDMLab while completing his work as a Postdoctoral Research Associate and Bye-Fellow at...

Claudia Schneider is a Senior Research Affiliate with the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab. She is based at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, where she holds a Lectureship (Assistant Professorship) in Environmental Psychology. Previously a post-doc with the CSDM lab...

Dr. Ramit Debnath is a University Assistant Professor and inaugural Cambridge Zero fellow at the University of Cambridge, and a visiting faculty associate at Caltech's Humanities and Social Sciences division. He leads the CamCID (https://camcid.github.io)...

Jacob Rode is a Teaching Associate at Cambridge starting Fall 2024, focusing on teaching social psychology. He received a PhD from the University of California, Irvine, and a BA from Johns Hopkins University. Jacob’s research sits at the intersection of sustainability and psychology,...

Lab Statistician

Lab Statistician

Breanne is an Affiliated Lecturer in Statistics in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge. She received a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics (Cum Laude) from the University of Utah in 2012 and a Master of Arts and PhD(cand) in Statistics from Yale University in 2014....

Graduates and Previous Lab Members

Alumna (PhD '2023)

Karly was a Gates scholar and received her BA (Hons) in Psychology from the University of British Columbia and a MPhil in Social and Developmental Psychology from the University of Cambridge. During the MPhil, she examined the differential relationships between domains of gender typicality and...

John completed a Postdoctoral Research Associate position at the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication and the Social Decision-Making Lab in the Department of Psychology at...

Kristian S Nielsen, now an Assistant Professor at the Copenhagen Business School, was a postdoctoral research associate at the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab. Kristian received a PhD from Copenhagen Business School in 2019 with a dissertation examining the role of self-regulation in...
Alumna (PhD '2022)

Melisa was a Gates Scholar and PhD Candidate in Psychology. At the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab, her research focused on attitudes,...

Alumnus (PhD '2022)

Steve Rathje finished his PhD in Psychology at Trinity College, Cambridge as a Gates Cambridge Scholar. Steve studied misinformation and political polarization on social media using computational and experimental methods. He then continued his research as a postdoctoral researcher...

Anne Marthe van der Bles is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Groningen where she received her PhD in social psychology in 2017. She was previously a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Cambridge Social Decision-Making lab and Winton Centre for...

Fatih Uenal is a postdoctoral researcher at the Consumer Decision & Sustainable Behavior Lab in the Department of Psychology at the University of Geneva. He was previously a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Cambridge Social Decision-...

Alumnus (PhD '2020)

Patrick McClanahan was a PhD candidate in Psychology at the University of Cambridge examining how individual traits and situational factors predict criminal decision-making. Originally from the United States (Roanoke College ’15 - Magna Cum Laude) his background is in Psychology and...

Alumna (MPhil '2020)

Kayla Pincus received her MPhil in Psychology from the University of Cambridge (2020) and a BA in Psychology from Sarah Lawrence College studying how social issues are marketed. Her research at Cambridge focused on using storytelling to...

Cameron is currently an Assistant Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Amsterdam. Prior to this position, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication...

Ahmed Izzidien
Research Associate (CJBS)
Research Associate (Hughes Hall)

Dr Izzidien was a visiting research associate at the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab. He completed a BEng(Hons) in computation (King’s College London) and an MSc and PhD in digital technology. He then began an interdisciplinary research training course completing an MA and MPhil (University...

Alumnus (MPhil '2019)

Ondřej graduated from Cambridge with an MPhil in Psychology (2019) and currently works as a Behavioural Scientist at The Behaviouralist. His research work focuses on how social norms and morality affect cooperation in real-world social dilemmas, such as...

Alumna (MPhil '2019)

Anandita (Ana) graduated with an MPhil in Psychology from Cambridge in 2019. Originally from India, Ana graduated with a BA in Psychology (magna cum laude) from Yale-NUS College, Singapore. Her MPhil thesis explored the "Greta Effect" or how exposure to Greta Thunberg shapes collective...

Visiting PhD Student ('2019)

Christel van Eck was a visiting PhD Candidate from the Strategic Communication Group at Wageningen University & Research, funded by the Dutch Research Council’s Research Talent Scholarship. Her PhD research focuses on polarisation in...

Alumna (MPhil '2019)

Kayleigh Dawson completed her MPhil in Psychology from the University of Cambridge where she also received a first-class degree in Psychological and Behavioural Sciences (PBS) from Jesus College. Kayleigh's dissertation explored the wisdom of the crowd in social norms and how norms help to...

Visiting BA Student ('2019)

Danielle is a BA student at the University of Miami double majoring in Psychology and Studio Art with minors in Ecosystem Science & Policy, Philosophy, English Literature, and Management. As a visiting research student at Cambridge and with support from the UM Academic Enhancement...

Visiting MSc Student ('2019)

Vivien was a visiting student at the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab. She completed a MSc at the Free University of Berlin and was a research assistant at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. Both her research experience and prior work in management consulting sparked her...

Visiting MSc Student ('2018)

Helena de Boer was a visiting dissertation MSc student (she graduated cum laude). At Cambridge, her research focused on perceptions of in-and out-group climate change ambassadors to help motivate people to adopt sustainable lifestyles. Before her MSc in Social Psychology...

Alumnus (PBS '2017)

Amos Fong graduated with a degree in PBS from St. Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge. He is interested in online echo chambers, and works with Twitter data to examine language differences among communities holding contrasting views. When he isn’t studying online social...

Alumna (MPhil '2017)

Elif completed her MPhil in Social and Developmental Psychology at the University of Cambridge. Although her recent work was in developmental psychology, Elif is interested in the intersection of policy- and decision-making, especially wanting to explore how choice architecture can help...

Visiting Student '2016

Charley Lenton-Lyons was a visiting research intern. He has a Bachelor’s in Zoology from Royal Holloway University and was a Research Intern at James Cook University in Australia. Charley combines his background in the biological sciences with that of social psychology to...

Mikey Biddlestone, now a Postdoctoral Research Associate at UCL, was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab. His primary research focus includes the social factors associated with conspiracy beliefs, developing misinformation interventions, and...

Now an Advisor at the Behavioural Insights Team, Trisha was a Research Assistant at the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab where she worked to understand, measure, and counter misinformation pertaining to vaccine hesitancy. Prior to Cambridge, she completed her MSc in Behavioural and...

Barbara was a project coordinator at the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge. Currently, she is working on IRIS Academic Research Group project supporting experts in developing a set of solutions, insights, best-...

Now a Computational Behavioural Scientist at Yonder, James was an undergraduate research assistant reading Psychological and Behavioural Sciences at Cambridge. He is interested in a wide range of social psychological topics from social influence to geographic variations of cultural values, and...

Flavio Azevedo is a political psychologist, Fulbright fellow, and Assistant Professor of Political Psychology at University of Groningen. He was a postdoc at Cambridge's Social Decision-Making Lab. His research focuses on ideology, how to measure it, and its role in political behavior and in...

Dongwon Lee is a full professor and director of graduate program in the College of Information Sciences and Technology (a.k.a. iSchool) at Penn State University, USA, and also an ACM Distinguished Scientist and Fulbright Cyber Security Scholar. Before starting at Penn State, he has worked at AT...

Gundersen was a visiting PhD student from the Culture, Society & Behavior lab at the University of Oslo. His PhD research focuses on psychological processes related to misinformation and conspiracy beliefs. During his visit at Cambridge, Gundersen’s research will look at the consumption and...

Research Assistant

Sushmeena was a Research Assistant at the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab. She is a part of an international research project where she is working on developing effective interventions to counter disinformation in the Global South. Prior to Cambridge, she completed her MA in Industrial/...

Project Coordinator

Ceejay was a project coordinator at the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab helping to bring awareness on the psychology of polarisation. Prior to joining Cambridge, he completed his MSc in Globalisation & Development at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and a BA in Justice &...

Carolin was a visiting PhD researcher at the Social Decision-Making Lab. Usually based at Friedrich Schiller University Jena in Germany, her research focuses on disinformation interventions, ideological bias and metacognitive bias awareness. For more information visit ...

Hannah was a visiting scholar from Stockholm University. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Greifswald with stays at University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University, which she concluded with a thesis on an extension and adaptation of the Gateway...

Visiting Scholar

Haiyan Wang is a PhD candidate from Department of Experimental and Applied psychology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research focuses on conspiracy beliefs and extremism. She also works at Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement, cluster of extremism and terrorism...

Visiting Scholar

Grit Zwingenberger was a visiting scholar at Cambridge University, researching the influence of social norms on high impact environmental behaviours within organisations across multiple regions.

As a Sustainability Consultant in a large professional services company, she is committed to...

Research Assistant

Willard was a research assistant and an undergraduate finalist reading the Psychological and Behavioural Sciences Tripos at Cambridge. He is particularly fascinated by the ways in which academic research can be leveraged to supplement policymaking particularly through the use of nudges and other...

Research Grants Administrator
Visiting Scholar

Niklas Henderson is a PhD candidate within the Privacy, Security and Trust research group at the University of East Anglia, and a part-time Game Development lecturer at Norwich University of the Arts. He was a visiting scholar at the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab. Niklas’s research...

PhD Candidate

Julian was a visiting PhD researcher at the Social Decision-Making Lab. When he is not climbing, he is studying how misinformation spreads on social media and which interventions might work to counter misinformation online. He is based at Friedrich Schiller University Jena in Germany, for more...

Visiting Postdoctoral Research Scholar

Dr Nadia Said is a Postdoc at the Applied Cognitive Psychology research group at the University of Tübingen and was a visiting research scholar at the Social Decision-Making Lab. She holds a diploma in physics as well as a bachelor's degree in psychology from Heidelberg University. Her PhD was a...

Research Assistant

Brandon was a research assistant within the Social Decision Making Lab, supporting several ongoing research projects within the department. Originally from Manchester, UK, he graduated with first-class honors from the Psychological and Behavioral Sciences tripos at the University of Cambridge in...

Undergraduate Alumni

Willard Ng '24 (PBS dissertation)

Lisa Sefton '24 (PBS dissertation)

Karina Chiang '24 (PBS dissertation)

Melissa Gentles '24 (PBS dissertation)

Reece D’Souza '24 (PBS dissertation)

Subomi Ade-Alamu '23 (Summer research project)

Georgia Capewell '23 (PBS dissertation)

Edmund Lam '20 (PBS dissertation)

Kieran Lewis '20 (PBS dissertation)

Nolwenn Lecompte '19 (PBS dissertation)

Eleanor Ansell '19 (PBS dissertation)

Hannah Martin '19 (PBS dissertation)

Carly Enright ' 19 (PBS dissertation)

Sofia Clini '19 (PBS dissertation)

Jyothsna Prakash '19 (PBS dissertation)

Katie Woods '18 (PBS dissertation)

Robyn Bailey '18 (PBS dissertation)

Rhian Armstrong '18 (PBS dissertation)

Nikol Illasova '18 (PBS dissertation)

Holly Young '17 (BBS dissertation)

Gloria Lau '17 (BBS dissertation)

Simon Bill '17 (BBS dissertation)