Dr. Hugo Mercier is a research scientist at the CNRS – Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Institut Jean Nicod), where he works with the Evolution and Social Cognition team. Most of his work so far has focused on the function and workings of reasoning. He’s the author of The Enigma of Reason, and, more recently, Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe. More»
Dr. Iris Berent is Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, US. Her research examines the nature of linguistic competence, its origins, and its interaction with reading ability. She’s the author of the book The Phonological Mind. She is also the author of a new book, The Blind Storyteller: How We Reason About Human Nature. More»
Dr. Sarah Garfinkel is Professor of neuroscience and psychiatry based at the University of Sussex and the Brighton and Sussex Medical School. Her research is focused on the link between interoception and emotion and memory. In 2018, she was selected as one of 11 researchers on the Nature Index 2018 Rising Stars. Dr. Garfinkel's research focuses on interoception, the ability to sense one’s own body, and the link between interoception and the brain. She specifically focuses on the heartbeat, and has shown that the heartbeat, and perception thereof, influences the way people process fear. Her research has furthermore shown that autistic people experience difficulty judging their heartbeat, causing anxiety and stress. This research has led to the development of a new therapy technique called interoception-directed therapy, which aims to reduce anxiety in autistic individuals. More»
Dr. Cristine Legare is a professor of psychology and the director of the Evolution, Variation, and Ontogeny of Learning Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research examines how the human mind enables us to learn, create, and transmit culture. She conducts comparisons across age, culture, and species to address fundamental questions about cognitive and cultural evolution. More»
Max Beilby is a Management and Organizational Psychologist and author of the Darwinian Business blog. He’s currently working as a practitioner in the banking industry. More»
Dr. Benjamin Bergen is Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of California San Diego. His research interests include language comprehension and production, including grammar, word meaning, metaphor, profanity, and talking while driving. He’s the author of the books Louder Than Words: The New Science of How the Mind Makes Meaning, and What the F: What Swearing Reveals About Our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves. More»
Dr. Khandis Blake is an evolutionary social psychologist at The University of Melbourne. She is an expert in gendered conflict. Her research considers how behavior, attitudes, and culture associated with gender are influenced by the interplay between nature, nurture, and the state of the economy. Herself and her collaborators propose that gendered phenomena such as inimate partner violence, attitudes toward abortion, and male-male aggression arise partially out of market conditions that shift the bargaining power between men and women. Second, she investigates the causes and consequences of female competition and the conditions under which female sexualization elevates women's agency. Third, she develops methodological tools to advance the psychosocial study of female ovulation and ovarian hormones. Finally, she is interested in the social contexts eliciting aggression, especially male-to-female aggression and intimate partner violence. More»
Dr. Colin Wright is Eberly Fellow in the Department of Biology at Pennsylvania State University. His research explores the effects of animal personality on collective behavior and colony success. Using a combination of laboratory and field experiments, he tests for relationships between group personality composition, inter-colony differences in collective behavior and behavioral flexibility, and colony performance. He uses social spiders (genus Stegodyphus) and paper wasps (genus Polistes) to probe these topics. More»
