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POST-DOC
PHILIP PARNAMETS - NYU Social Psychology Postdoctoral Fellow
Philip completed his PhD in cognitive science at Lund University and has spent two years as a postdoc with the Emotion Lab at Karolinska Institutet. His research is grounded in a broad interest in the cognitive and computational mechanisms underlying preference change, decision making and learning, especially in the moral domain. In the Social Identity and Morality lab his work focuses on dynamic models of social learning about moral agents and of moral choices generally. Philip spends his spare time creating, listening or dancing to electronic music.
MEET OUR TEAM
Thank you for your interest in the Center for Conflict and Cooperation.
We have lab meetings every Friday. Please contact us if you are interested in attending lab meetings or presenting your research. If you are interested in joining the Center, please see the Join Us page for more information.
DIRECTOR
JAY VAN BAVEL is a Professor of Psychology & Neural Science at New York University, an affiliate at the Stern School of Business in Management and Organizations, and Director of the Center for Conflict and Cooperation. To read Jay's official bio in full, go to his NYU home page. Here is his unofficial bio:
After giving up on his dream to become a professional hockey player, Jay became the first person in his family to graduate from college. It took him three years of his undergraduate degree before he realized that research was conducted at universities (despite attending the third-largest research university in Canada). After his first year of graduate school at the University of Toronto, Jay's Ph.D. advisor (Ken Dion) tragically passed away and he was orphaned until a new assistant professor (Wil Cunningham) adopted him. A year later, his new advisor was poached by The Ohio State University and Jay moved to Columbus, Ohio as a visiting scholar. Jay completed most of his Ph.D. requirements (orals, proposal, etc) in various hotel lobbies during the annual SPSP convention since it was the only time and place he could get all his committee members in the same room. In his first year as an assistant professor, Jay had ten papers and three grants rejected and zero publications. His son and daughter were born in his first two years as a faculty member and ensured that he maintained the appearance and intellectual capacity of a zombie until he went up for tenure.
ANNI STERNISKO : Co-Director
Anni is the Co-Director of the Center for Conflict and Cooperation. She obtained her Ph.D. in social psychology from New York University and her B.A. from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich. She is interested in the social dynamics of conspiracy theory beliefs, polarization, and ideology. Anni has used her expertise to advise organizations on information campaigns, depolarization programs, and non-violent communication training. She also serves as an Expert Affiliate with the United Nations Team of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, which holds permanent consultative status at the U.N. In this role, she has worked on issues such as environmental injustice, data-driven policy making, and sustainable development.
CO-DIRECTOR
POSTDOC
VICTORIA OLDEMBURGO DE MELLO : Civic Science Postdoctoral Fellow
Victoria is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Toronto studying how technology shapes human behavior and society, focusing on social media and artificial intelligence. She received her B.A. from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) and her M.A. from the University of Toronto. Her recent work examines how LLM characteristics like anthropomorphism and sycophancy influence user trust and belief change, as well as how people moralize AI and treat AI systems as moral entities. Her social media research explores how platforms can both foster and erode social connection, examining cross-cultural differences and the ways social media shapes beliefs and desires.
POSTDOC
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MICHELLE BLAYA-BURGO: NYU Postdoctoral Associate
Michelle is a postdoctoral associate, working jointly with the Center for Conflict and Cooperation and the BASE Lab at the NYU School of Global Public Health. She received her PhD in Applied Social Psychology from Claremont Graduate University (CA, US). Originally from Spain, she earned her BA from Miguel Hernández University and her first MA from the University of Córdoba. Her recent research examines how identity and uncertainty shape polarization and violent radicalization, with a broader interest in violence prevention and how identity affects security and well-being in communities. Michelle also has expertise in program evaluation and is especially interested in research that translates into applicable, community-facing work. Beyond her work, she loves traveling and reading and is an aspiring tattoo artist.
VISITING POSTDOC
BRUNA MOTA : Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow
Bruna is a Postdoctoral Fellow funded by FAPESP (São Paulo Research Foundation) at the Social and Cognitive Neuroscience Lab (SCNLab) – Mackenzie Presbyterian University, Brazil. She is a member of the National Institute of Social and Affective Neuroscience (INCT-SANI), where she leads the Global Cooperation Project, testing interventions to foster cooperation among polarized individuals in a cross-cultural study. Her research interests include social dynamics, positive emotions, and the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying these processes.
LAB MANAGER
HANNAH KARSTING : Lab Manager
Hannah Karsting (she/her) received her BA in psychology from Columbia University. She spent her time as an undergrad working at the Stanford Neurodiversity Project and Columbia’s Couples Lab, as well as directing and acting in musicals, plays, and comedy sketches. In her career, she wants to develop interventions to address psychologically-rooted societal problems, and further hopes to bridge the gap between social-psychological research and policy implementation.
PHD STUDENT
DANIELLE GOLDWERT : NYU Social Psychology Ph.D. Student
Danielle received her B.A. in Psychology and Studio Art from the University of Miami in 2021 and then worked part-time as a research specialist in the Princeton University Behavioral Science for Policy Lab for two years. She began her Ph.D. in Social Psychology at NYU in 2022, where she conducts research at the intersection of social psychology and global climate change. Her primary advisor is Madalina Vlasceanu, and she collaborates with the Center for Conflict and Cooperation to investigate how psychological, sociopolitical, and cultural factors influence public perception and behavior towards climate change, and how this understanding can drive more effective climate action. Outside of the lab, Danielle is passionate about painting, rock climbing, backpacking, and stop motion animation.
VISITING SCHOLAR
SONJA BELKIN : Visiting PhD Student
Sonja Belkin is a visiting PhD student from LSE, funded by the LSE-NYU Research Seed Fund. Prior to her PhD, Sonja received a BSc in Psychological and Behavioural Sciences from LSE, where her thesis used agent-based modelling to probe how user heterogeneity and recommendation algorithms interact in the emergence of online issue polarisation. Following this, she obtained an MPhil in Psychology from the University of Cambridge, where she used Bayesian belief networks to examine why we might observe greater belief polarisation for social policy issues compared to economic ones. Her current research combines empirical and computational approaches to explore how user psychology, recommender systems, and AI-generated content may interact to drive belief polarisation in online information environments. At the Center for Conflict and Cooperation, she is investigating how social identity cues may lead individuals to infer source dependency and, subsequently, affect belief revision. In the future, she hopes her research may inform the design and regulation of information ecosystems, particularly to make them resilient to AI-driven manipulation.
VISITING SCHOLAR
LORENZO DE GREGORI : Visiting PhD Candidate
Lorenzo De Gregori is a visiting PhD candidate from ESADE Business School, where he studies moral and political psychology. He received a bachelor's degree in Psychological Sciences and a master's degree in Social Psychology from the University of Padua. Using survey research, behavioral experiments, and computational modeling, he examines how people’s beliefs about right and wrong shape political attitudes, intergroup relations, and social decision-making. He is particularly interested in how meta-ethical beliefs influence attitudes toward immigration, support for restrictive policies, and discrimination. At the Center for Conflict and Cooperation, he investigates how polarization and self-censorship shape whose views become visible online, and whether shared commitments to pluralism can encourage political expression. Across these projects, he seeks to understand when moral beliefs facilitate coexistence and when they contribute to exclusion and conflict.
RESEARCH ASSISTANTS & THESIS STUDENTS
Research Assistant
Mackenzie Jones
Research Assistant
Adrian Dsouza
Research Assistant
Hamza Alshamy
Research Assistant
Shriya Bhutani
Research Assistant
Robin Shanholtz
Research Assistant
Rosa Rodriguez Ristori
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Androw Ramy
Research Assistant
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Benjamin Choi
Research Assistant