About Me

Giving a talk about Asian health hazard stereotypes during the 2022 York-UofT Social-Personality Area (YUTSPA) conference.

I am a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University, affiliated with Stanford SPARQ and the Department of Psychology (Social Psychology), working with Jennifer Eberhardt, Hazel Markus, and MarYam Hamedani. I completed my PhD in 2023 in the Social-Personality Psychology program at York University under the supervision of Richard Lalonde and Joni Sasaki (now at the University of Hawaii at Manoa). I graduated with a BSc in Psychology (specialist degree) in 2014 at the University of Toronto (Mississauga campus).

Research Areas

I study the causes and consequences of, and solutions for, cultural clashes. My research focuses on cultural clashes that usually involve the three R's:

Region-based cultures, that are within, between, and across nations (e.g., ethnic communities, local regions, larger geopolitical regions)
Religion, with an emphasis on understudied worldwide religious experiences
Race, and how racialized experiences form cultural experiences that are distinct from region and religion-based cultures, and how racialized experiences vary across different social and cultural contexts

How does culture shape the way we navigate our diverse social worlds? I study sociocultural factors that shape gaze cueing, mental inference, and other social cognitive processes that support our ability to effectively navigate our social environments. I am also interested in how culture interacts with biological processes using gene-culture interaction approaches.
Example publications:
Culture, self-construal and gaze cueing: [PDF]
Multilingualism and mentalizing: [PDF]
Presence of siblings and mentalizing: [PDF]

How do our multiple cultural experiences interact and shape our well-being? I examine the relationships between religious or racialized experiences and well-being, and how this may depend on broader cultural contexts, such as ethnicity and nation-level cultural values.
Example publications:
Asian health hazard stereotypes: [PDF]
Religiosity and well-being across nations: [PDF]

What are the implications of the way culture and diversity are represented "in the wild"? How is culture and diversity represented and talked about in our minds, and what are the implications for how culture and diversity is represented in our environment (e.g., media)? I examine how we can intervene on misguided ideas of culture and diversity using media to improve intercultural relations and increase accurate understanding of culture and diversity.
Example publications:
Lay misinterpretations of culture and biology: [PDF]

Outside of Academia

Hobbies I try to keep up with: drawing, painting, hiking, video games, and weight lifting. I love to eat, travel, and learn about different cultures, which sometimes happens at the same time. I also have two cats, Jakes and Clover! I am also a casual coding fan and accidentally won first place at my first hackathon.