Current PhD Students

We are proud of our graduate students at Stony Brook. For a list of students on the job market, please check our Hire a Stony Brook PhD page.

William Brown

Will's research interests fall under political psychology and American politics. He is especially interested in political norms, persuasion, opinion change, and anti-democratic attitudes and behavior.

william.tw.brown@stonybrook.edu

Claire Christensen

Claire's research interests fall mostly within American politics including electoral politics, partisan polarization, policy outcomes. In particular she focuses on understanding the effects of extremism and conspiratorial politics.

claire.christensen@stonybrook.edu

Ingram Dressler

Ingram's research interests include political psychology and American politics. He is especially interested in the role of online content creators and communities in influencing the political ideology of their followers.

ingram.dressler@stonybrook.edu

Ago Echeverri

Ago’s research interests are in political psychology, race and ethnicity and social identity, with a focus on nationalism, polarization, discrimination, and minority coalitions.

santiago.echeverri@stonybrook.edu

Romeo Gray

Romeo's interests include the psychology of intergroup relations and the influence of elites on public opinion, and he is currently investigating the role that political threats play in the degradation of support for political norms and institutions.

romeo.gray@stonybrook.edu

Diego Hernandez

Diego’s research interests fall within political psychology. He is particularly interested in the political behaviors of groups, support for right-wing populism globally, and applying political psychological perspectives to the study of conspiratorial belief.

diego.hernandez@stonybrook.edu

Miguel Higuera

Miguel’s research falls under the fields of Political Psychology and American Politics. Specifically, he is interested in the motivations for political participation, apathy, and conflict, as well as the influence of online interactions on political behavior and psychology.

miguel.higuera@stonybrook.edu

Nicole Huffman

Nicole's research interests are in group identities, representation, legislative behavior, and media. Their work focuses on how race and gender impact legislative behavior and communication as well as citizen's reception of that behavior and rhetoric.

nicole.huffman@stonybrook.edu

Srivardhan Jangili

Srivardhan's research interests include political psychology and political communication. In particular, he is interested in how people process political information and how people respond to politics online.

srivardhan.jangili@stonybrook.edu

Olivia Grace Jessee

Olivia’s research interests are in Political Psychology & American Politics. She’s especially drawn to rural politics.

Olivia.Jessee@stonybrook.edu

Kira Kiritchenko

Kira's research interests fall under political psychology.

kira.kiritchenko@stonybrook.edu

Olga Khvostunova

Olga's research interests are broadly in the fields of political psychology, comparative politics, and political communication.

olga.khvostunova@stonybrook.edu

Josh McDonnell

Josh's research interests include social media use and its effect on offline political action, particularly political violence. Specifically, he focuses on how group dynamics and responses to online rhetoric influence mobilization.

james.mcdonnell@stonybrook.edu

Tom McDonough

Tom's research interests include behavioral political economy and political psychology. His work focuses on how people evaluate the future and cooperate in groups based on their perceptions of event probabilities and their realized outcomes.

thomas.mcdonough@stonybrook.edu

Veronica Oelerich

Veronica's research interests broadly fall under political psychology, behavioral political economy, and American politics, with particular interest in collective action.

veronica.oelerich@stonybrook.edu

Adam Panish

Adam's research focuses on how individual differences in emotion and cognition influence public opinion. His dissertation explores how dispositional anxiety shapes attitudes toward social welfare policy and redistribution.

adam.panish@stonybrook.edu

Morgan Pettit

Morgan's research interests fall primarily within the fields of Political Psychology and American Politics. Specifically, her interests are centered on issues of ideology, democratic institutions, and authoritarianism.

morgan.pettit@stonybrook.edu

Ben Rudolph

Ben is interested in studying how people develop conviction in their political beliefs and attitudes. To explore this question, his research examines social influence, moral psychology, and political ideology, among other topics

benjamin.rudolph@stonybrook.edu

David Schloesser

David Schloesser's research interests are in American Politics and Political Psychology. He is especially interested in rural politics and how rural Americans formulate their political positions.

david.schloesser@stonybrook.edu

Anakiz Elif Senturk

Elif’s research interests lie in political psychology, focusing on intergroup dynamics, nationalism, authoritarianism, and anti-democratic attitudes, and how moral and psychological processes shape perceptions of justice and authority across American and comparative contexts.

anakiz.senturk@stonybrook.edu

Vitória Sgorlon

Vitória studies political psychology, focusing on group identity, public opinion, and (un)democratic attitudes. Her dissertation examines left-right ideology as a social identity in Latin America. Other research interests include the populist far-right in the Americas, (mis)perceptions, corruption and accountability, and religion and politics.

vitoria.sgorlonoliveira@stonybrook.edu

Xiaomeng Song

Xiaomeng’s research interests lie in climate change, environmental economics, and environmental policy analysis. Her primary methodological approach is quantitative analysis, with a particular emphasis on causal inference.

xiaomeng.song@stonybrook.edu

Ignacio Urbina

Ignacio's research interests are in comparative political behavior, behavioral political economy, and methods. He focuses on the politics of AI, exploring citizens' attitudes about AI and the impact of human-computer interactions on cooperation and political beliefs. He also studies democratic attitudes in Latin America and the effects of state violence on politics.

ignacio.urbina@stonybrook.edu

Asha Venugopalan

Asha’s research interests include the political psychology of intergroup relations, survey methodology and political behaviour. Her current research explores the intersection of partisan and gender identities and stereotypes in evaluating candidates for federal elections.

asha.venugopalan@stonybrook.edu

Sarah-Jane Vincent

Sarah’s research interests broadly fall under Political Psychology and American Politics. She is especially interested in climate attitudes, climate behaviors, norms, social influence and political communication.

sarah-jane.vincent@stonybrook.edu

Abigail Woodfield

Abby's research interests relate to the intersection of democracy and identity in a comparative context. Using political psychology methods, she is focused on answering questions about rhetoric, separatist conflict, electoral institutions, and party sorting.

abigail.woodfield@stonybrook.edu

Seden Yilmazturk

Seden's research interests fall under political psychology and american politics.

seden.yilmazturk@stonybrook.edu