Stanford Psychology Podcast

Elizabeth chats with Dr. Dawn Finzi, a Machine Learning engineer on the Perception team at Zoox, and a recent alumni of our very own Stanford’s Department of Psychology, as a part of our new Psychologist in the Wild series. During her PhD, Dawn studied the functional organization of the human visual system, focusing on both the structural underpinnings and the overarching computational goals. In this episode, Dawn shares her scientific journey from PhD to industry, and how her PhD experience translates to her current role at Zoox. If you found this episode interesting at all, subscribe on our Substack and consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology.Dawn’s website: https://www.dawnfinzi.com/Elizabeth’s: website: imelizabeth.github.ioElizabeth’s BlueSky: @imelizabeth.bsky.socialPodcast BlueSky @StanfordPsyPod.bsky.socialPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

Join Jane as she chats with Dr. David Almeida, a leading researcher in daily stress from Penn State. They dive into how stress affects health and the surprising benefits of experiencing moderate stress. Dr. Almeida explains age-related differences in stress reactivity and how personality factors into our stress responses. He offers practical advice for handling stress, emphasizing the importance of social connections and movement. Discover a new perspective on stress that just might make you rethink its role in your life.

In this episode, Su chats with Diyi Yang, an assistant professor in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University, affiliated with the Stanford NLP Group, Stanford Human Computer Interaction Group, Stanford AI Lab, and Stanford Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. She is also leading the Social and Language Technologies Lab, where they study Socially Aware Natural Language Processing. Her research goal is to better understand human communication in social context and build socially aware language technologies via methods of NLP, deep learning, and machine learning as well as theories in social sciences and linguistics, to support human-human and human-computer interaction.In today's episode, we discuss her interdisciplinary approach to research, along with her recent paper "Social Skill Training with Large Language Models," which introduces a new framework that supports making social skill training more available, accessible, and inviting.Diyi’s paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.04204Diyi’s lab website: https://cs.stanford.edu/~diyiy/group.html Diyi’s personal website: https://cs.stanford.edu/~diyiy/index.html Su’s Twitter: @sudkrcPodcast Twitter: @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Bluesky: @stanfordpsypod.bsky.socialPodcast Substack: https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.comThis episode was recorded on February 5, 2025.

In this engaging conversation, Katy Milkman, a renowned professor at The Wharton School, shares her groundbreaking research on behavior change. She discusses innovative 'megastudies' that unlock insights into effective habits and highlights how psychological insights can complement economic theories. Katy also delves into her non-traditional educational journey, the vital role mentorship plays in academia, and how ownership language can encourage positive health behaviors. Her passion for translating science into actionable strategies is both inspiring and eye-opening.

Julian Jara Ettinger, Associate Professor of Psychology and Computer Science at Yale, leads the Computational Social Cognition Lab. He discusses his paper on the intricate link between language and social reasoning, revealing how our brains employ real-time social micro-processes during communication. Julian shares insights from his research on how we comprehend others' minds, highlighting the balance between complex and simplified cognitive strategies. He also reflects on his interdisciplinary journey in cognitive science and its implications for understanding human interaction.

In this re-air episode from summer 2021 (one of our first!), Anjie chats with Judy Fan, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. Judy’s research is at the intersection of computational neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence. In this episode, she discusses a new line of research in her lab exploring how people learn about objects by trying to build them from scratch. She and her team recruited people online to play a game where they aimed to reconstruct various block towers and analyzed the types of mistakes they made, as well as how they got better at the game over time. Insights from experiments like these may help reveal the cognitive principles that govern how people "reverse-engineer" how things are made — from how an unfamiliar dish was prepared to how a song was composed.You can learn more about this project by visiting this site: https://github.com/cogtoolslab/block_construction and read their paper here: https://cogtoolslab.github.io/pdf/mccarthy_cogsci_2020.pdfTo learn more about Judy Fan's research, check out her lab's website: https://cogtoolslab.github.io/.You can also follow her on Twitter (@judyefan).

This week, Enna chats with Dr. Mike North, Associate Professor of Management and Organizations, at NYU Stern School of Business and founding director of the AGE Initiative. Mike’s research focuses on the challenges and opportunities of today’s multigenerational workforce. His work has shaped public conversations on aging and has been featured in major media outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, TIME, and so on.In our conversation, Mike shares stories from his early days as a researcher, and we dive into two of his recent papers on ageism—one investigating bias against older adults, even among equality advocates, and another unpacking stereotypes about younger generations.Mike’s Website: https://www.mike-north.com/ Mie’s Twitter: @MichaelSNorthMike’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-north-7aa39b50/ Mike’s Papers: (1) https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000262 (2) https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001064 Enna’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ennayuxuanchen/ Enna’s Twitter: @EnnaYuxuanChenPodcast Contact: stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com Podcast Twitter: @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack: https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/ Podcast Contact: stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com 

Laura Schulz, a Professor of Cognitive Sciences at MIT and director of the Early Childhood Cognition Lab, shares her journey into cognitive science. She discusses how children learn through play and their remarkable abilities in causal reasoning and emotional understanding. Laura highlights the importance of open collaboration in research, particularly through the Lookit platform that connects families to cognitive studies. She also emphasizes systemic improvements in early childhood education to support disadvantaged children, blending science with practical educational insights.

This week, Misha chats with Robert Hawkins, Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Stanford University. Robert directs the Social Interaction Lab where he studies the cognitive mechanisms that enable human communication and collaboration. His interdisciplinary work combines interactive experiments with computational models to uncover how people flexibly coordinate with one another.In this episode, we discuss his recent paper on communication in reference games, exploring how lexical search and social reasoning work together when we try to help others understand what we're talking about. They also dive into Robert's academic journey, his vision for the Social Interaction Lab, and how he successfully navigates the interdisciplinary landscape of cognitive science.If you found this episode interesting, subscribe to our Substack and consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second, but it will allow us to reach more people and excite them about psychology.Links: Robert's paper on lexical search and social reasoning: https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2026-03739-001.html Robert's website: https://rdhawkins.com/ Robert's Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/rdhawkins.bsky.social Misha's website: https://www.mishaokeeffe.com/ Podcast Twitter: @StanfordPsyPod Podcast Bluesky: @stanfordpsypod.bsky.socialPodcast Substack: https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/ Let us know what you think of this episode or the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

In this episode, Elizabeth chats with Dr. Kendrick Kay, an Associate Professor in Radiology at University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. He directs the Computational Visual Neuroscience Laboratory, and aims to understand brain function by combining cognitive neuroscience, functional MRI methods, and computational neuroscience. In this episode, Kendrick shares his work on the groundbreaking Natural Scene Dataset and discusses the behind-the-scenes considerations that went into its creation. He also outlines important points for brain scientists to think about when creating and using large-scale fMRI datasets, and shares parts of his journey as a scientist.Discussed Papers in Podcast: A massive 7T fMRI dataset to bridge cognitive neuroscience and artificial intelligencePrinciples of intensive human neuroimagingKendrick’s website: http://cvnlab.netElizabeth’s: website: imelizabeth.github.ioElizabeth’s BlueSky: @imelizabeth.bsky.socialPodcast BlueSky @StanfordPsyPod.bsky.socialPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com