Specializations

• social cognition
• experimental philosophy
• religious cognition

Research Description

My research falls broadly into the intersection of religious and social cognition. Specifically, I am interested in reasoning about religious affiliation as a social kind, non-agentic religious concepts, and how our cognitive biases lead to religious intuitions.

I am also interested in folk morality, especially whether moral reasoning relies on categories of actions beyond the obligatory and the forbidden. Questions from this line of research include: 1) what these categories might be (e.g., supererogration), 2) how do these categories relate to moral conflict, and 3) what individual differences exist in the use of these categories.

Education

• M.A. (Distinction), Cognition and Culture, Queen's University Belfast, 2010
• B.A., English, University of Maryland, College Park, 2007

Distinctions / Awards

• University Fellowship, 2010-2011
• Fellowship, Spring 2012

Webpages

• PRAM Lab at UIUC
• Associate Researcher at Porto XPhi Lab
• Cognitive Development Lab at UIUC