Jean Decety

Jean Decety (Ph.D. in Neuroscience) is Irving B. Harris Distinguished Professor of Psychology and of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of Chicago and the College. He is the Director of the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab and the Child Neurosuite. Decety’s research relies on integrating knowledge across multiple levels of analyses, the perspective that characterizes social neuroscience. He also highly values teaching undergraduates as it motivates to think about the long road, and find meaningful links with other disciplines including evolutionary psychology, economics, sociology and political science.

email: decety [AT] uchicago.edu

Abdulaziz Alhothi

Abdulaziz grew up in Qatar. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University with a minor in Mathematics. He is a MAPSS candidate seeking to examine the driving factors of how people perceive their own moral values and how empathy intervenes in moral decision-making. Coming from a rapidly developing country in terms of politics and religion, Abdulaziz is particularly interested in exploring the validity and reliability of various ways to measure moral decision-making in the context of Arab and Islamic societies.

email: a.alhothi [AT] gmail.com

Qiongwen (Jovie) Cao

Qiongwen (Jovie) received her B.A. in Psychology and Neuroscience from the University of Southern California, where she studied the effects of attribute salience on intertemporal choice. Jovie is a Ph.D. student in the Integrative Neuroscience program interested in morality and social decision-making. Specifically, she examines how social context and culture affect moral decisions and the valuations of human lives. Jovie’s work combines behavioral economics, eye-tracking, and cognitive neuroscience to understand the underlying mechanisms of moral decisions.

email: qiongwenc [AT] uchicago.edu

Jie Chen

Jie is a Ph.D. student in Computational Neuroscience. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Applied Psychology from the University of California Santa Barbara in 2021. Before joining UChicago’s PhD program in 2023, Jie worked as Lab Manager at Yu Emotion Science Lab at UC Santa Barbara studying value-based decision-making in various social contexts. She is interested in exploring the neural and computational mechanisms underlying how emotions and moral judgments are related to decision-making. She is particularly interested in how decisions and judgments are guided by moral conviction.

email: jchen28 [AT] uchicago.edu

Michael Cohen

Michael Cohen earned a Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience from UCLA, and has had prior postdoctoral training at Northwestern University and University of Pennsylvania. Much of his prior work has used behavioral and fMRI methods to examine effects of conscious strategies and non-strategic effects of reward when people learn information of varying importance. In the SCNL, Michael used fMRI, cognitive science methods and computational modeling to examine how moral convictions motivate political activism and political violence.

email: mscohen [AT] uchicago.edu

Elodie Corvaisier

Elodie is a doctoral student in Economics. She holds a Master in International Economy and Development from the University Paris Dauphine. Elodie studies the impact of armed conflict violence exposure and forced displacement on children’s social preferences in the Sahel region of Africa. These findings are also examined from a gendered perspective, in particular, the intergenerational transfer of social norms from mothers to their daughters. Elodie’s main research interests rely on Development Economics, Gender Economics, Behavioral and Experimental Economics.

Email: elodiecc35 [AT] gmail.com

Charlotte Dai

Charlotte is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Statistics at the University of Chicago. She earned her B.S. degree in Mathematics from the University of Washington, Seattle. Charlotte is deeply interested in understanding the underlying role of empathy and moral value that guide interpersonal behavior. Specifically, she focuses on how user-generated content (UGC) can elicit empathy and promote prosociality among individuals.

Email: dcar [AT] uchicago.edu

Yingzi (Jay) Jin

Yingzi (Jay) received zir B.S. in Mathematics and Cognitive Science from the University of California, San Diego. Ze is a student in the Master in Computational Social Science, interested in empathy, group identity, bias, prosocial behaviors, and influence of social media. Jay investigates what factors affect empathy and how social media influences group identity and bias. Ze regards data science as a very powerful tool to do psychology research. In zir leisure time, Jay likes singing, enjoying classical concerts, wine tasting, and photography.

email: jinyz [AT] uchicago.edu

Joanna Li

Joanna received her B.A. from Georgetown University, where she studied Psychology and Biology under the mentorship of Dr. Abigail Marsh. Currently, she is a MAPSS student whose research centers on altruism, prosocial decision-making, and moral psychology. In particular, she is captivated by the mechanisms that drive compassion–especially to extraordinary degrees. She is a big fan of open science, Hank Green, and Jeopardy.

email: ll1123 [AT] uchicago.edu

 Haocheng (Tino) Ma

Haocheng was a MAPSS student at the University of Chicago and is now a research assistant at New York University. He received his B.S. in Engineering and Psychology from National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan. He previously worked as a research assistant at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He also studied at Osaka University and Hokkaido University in Japan. Haocheng is interested in developmental science, empathy, moral reasoning, and cognitive science. He speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, English, and some Spanish. He enjoys scuba diving and swimming. 

email: hm3135 [AT] nyu.edu

Undergraduate students

Hina Masuda-Singh 
Second year at the College
Majoring in Neuroscience and Psychology

Nishtha Sharma
Third year at the College
Majoring in Economics

Victor Roberts
Second year at the College
Majoring in Economics and Psychology

Nell Rydzewski
Fourth year at the College
Majoring in Economics and Cognitive Science

 Adina Ziv
Second year at the College
Majoring in Economics and Psychology

Collaborations

Marie Claire Villeval 🇫🇷
Experimental economics
CNRS-Lyon University, France

Winnifred Louis 🇦🇺
Social psychology
University of Queensland, Australia

Yuan Chang Leong 🇺🇸
Social psychology and social neuroscience
University of Chicago, United States

Fang Cui 🇨🇳
Experimental psychology
Shenzhen University, China

Rhea Arini 🇬🇧
Social psychology
University of Lincoln, United Kingdom 

Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab
5848 S. University Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637