I am a third year PhD student at the University of Chicago working with Dr. Amanda Woodward. I am interested in the different ways in which children learn new information about the world, either socially from other people or independently through their own discovery. In my studies so far, I have been able to explore how learning through different forms of instruction and exploration relates to children’s generalization of new rules, imitation, and children’s cultural environment more broadly. Currently, I am working on new projects focused on developing online games for young children to investigate how instruction translates onto digital platforms.

I graduated from Brown University with an Sc.B in Psychology in 2018. At Brown, I worked with Dr. David Sobel to investigate parents’ STEM attitudes and children’s causal learning, and I worked with Dr. Joseph Austerweil to investigate the effects of Alzheimer’s Disease on semantic memory.

Office: Green Hall, Room 501
Phone: (773) 834-9791
carolmedina@uchicago.edu