5  Faculty Descriptions and Publications

Justin Dainer-Best

Associate Professor in Psychology (he/him)

Education and Training

Degree Institution
B.A. Haverford College
Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin

Professor Dainer-Best is a clinical psychologist interested in how positive and negative emotions change the way people think about themselves and the world around them. More broadly, he is interested in the genesis and maintenance of depressed mood. His work focuses on identifying the best methods for understanding how people who are depressed and anxious think. Professor Dainer-Best’s research continues to ask questions about how people who are depressed describe themselves—and how to increase positive self-description. For instance, past work showed that adults with low mood will learn to describe themselves more positively after imagining future positive social situations. The Affective Science Lab uses clinical research methods to identify the factors underlying mood disorders. Work in the lab uses samples of adults, online and in person, across the range of depressive symptoms.

Laboratory website: https://affectlab.bard.edu/

Selected Publications

  • Dainer-Best, J. & Rubin, M. (2024). Guided feedback in an online text-based game impacts activity choices. Journal of Affective Disorders Reports, 16, Article 100738. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadr.2024.100738
  • Dainer-Best, J., Shumake, J.D., & Beevers, C.G. (2018). Positive imagery training increases positive self-referent cognition in depression. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 111, 72–83. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2018.09.010
  • Beevers, C.G., Mullarkey, M.C., Dainer-Best, J., Steward, R.A., Labrada, J., Allen, J.J.B., McGeary, J.E., & Shumake, J.D. (2019). Association between negative cognitive bias and depression: A symptom-level approach. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 128(3), 212–227. https://doi.org/10.1037/abn0000405

Grace deMeurisse

Visiting Assistant Professor in Psychology (she/her/hers)

Education and Training

Degree Institution
B.A. Western Washington University
M.A. University of Florida
Ph.D. University of Florida

Grace deMeurisse’s research investigates language processing and bilingualism. More specifically, she is interested in how we process sentences (syntax) and meaning (semantics/pragmatics) in our second language, and how the maintenance of two languages (bilingualism) impacts cognitive control (e.g., attention). Many people have experienced how difficult it can be to learn a second language, especially to high levels of proficiency. Professor deMeurisse’s research asks questions such as what types of language or “linguistic structures” may be more or less difficult for second language speakers to process, and in turn, how does speaking two languages lend itself to more efficient cognitive control? To address these questions, Professor deMeurisse uses a variety of behavioral methods, probing, for example, how long it takes people to read sentences, or respond to certain stimuli.

Selected Publications

  • deMeurisse, G., & Kaan, E. (in press). Using reaction and reading time techniques to study bi/multilingual sentence processing. In J. W. Schwieter and G. Klassen (Eds.), Quantitative Research Methods in Multilingual Acquisition and Processing. John Benjamins.
  • deMeurisse, G., & Kaan, E. (2023). Bilingual attentional control: Evidence from the partial repetition cost paradigm. 1–11. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728923000731

Sarah Dunphy-Lelii

Associate Professor in Psychology (she/her)

Education and Training

Degree Institution
B.A. Pennsylvania State University
M.A. University of Michigan
Ph.D. University of Michigan

Professor Dunphy-Lelii’s undergraduate education focused on child cognitive development, after which she became project coordinator for the Cognitive Evolution Group at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette, studying cognition in chimpanzees. Professor Dunphy-Lelii then pursued graduate work with human preschoolers on very similar theoretical topics—for example, the ways that young individuals think about the minds of others, and how they reason about unseeable behaviors such as thoughts, beliefs, and desires. She became intrigued by how the specific case of autism might shed some light on these same topics—in particular, how different children learn to distinguish self from other in terms of perspective-taking, memory, and imitation. Professor Dunphy-Lelii spent recent sabbaticals in Kibale National Park, Uganda following wild chimpanzees; at Bard, her interests in young children’s social cognition, children with autism, and non-human primates influence her ongoing research and teaching.

Laboratory website: http://cdp.bard.edu

Selected Publications

  • Dunphy-Lelii, S. & Mitani, J. (2019). Wild chimpanzees show a decrease in pant grunting over their first 6 years of life. Folia Primatologica, 90, 77–88. https://doi.org/10.1159/000495108
  • Dunphy-Lelii, S., Hooley, M., McGivern, L., Skouteris, H., & Cox, R. (2014). Can I reach that sticker? Preschoolers’ practical judgments about their own and others’ body size. Journal of Cognition and Development, 15, 584–598. https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2013.797905
  • Dunphy-Lelii, S., LaBounty, J., Lane, J., & Wellman, H. (2014). The social context of infant intention understanding. Journal of Cognition and Development, 15(1), 60–77. https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2012.710863

Tom Hutcheon

Assistant Professor in Psychology (he/him/his)

Education and Training

Degree Institution
B.A. Bates College
M.S. Georgia Institute of Technology
Ph.D. Georgia Institute of Technology

Professor Hutcheon’s research focuses on cognitive control, which is defined as the ability to se-lect relevant sources of information in the face of distracting or competing sources of information. As everyone has experienced, the efficiency of cognitive control varies. At times we find it easy to sit down at our computers and work on a paper. At other times we end up checking our email eve-ry three minutes. What causes this variability in performance? Professor Hutcheon’s research seeks to understand the mechanisms that support cognitive control, the factors that influence the efficien-cy of cognitive control, and how these are influenced by healthy aging. To address these issues, Professor Hutcheon uses a variety of behavioral and statistical techniques including computational modeling and response time distribution analyses.

Laboratory website: https://bardattentionandperformancelab.com/

Selected Publications

  • David, A., Ingwu, J., Meselsohn, N., Retzloff, C., & Hutcheon, T. G. (in press). Precrastination across physical and cognitive tasks. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1177/17470218241246972
  • Hutcheon, T. G., McMahon, H., Retzloff, C., Samat, A., & Tinker, C. (2024). The attractiveness of face cues does not modulate the gaze cuing effect. Visual Cognition, 31(9), 655–670. https://doi.org/10.1080/13506285.2024.2335585
  • Hutcheon, T. G. (2022). What is cued by faces in the face-based context-specific proportion manipulation? Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 84, 1248–1263. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-022-02447-w

Elena Kim

Visiting Associate Professor in Psychology (she/her/hers)

Education and Training

Degree Institution
B.A. American University of Central Asia
M.A. Central European University
Ph.D. University of Bonn

Professor Kim is interested in the interface between psychology and gender studies with a focus on violence against women and crisis intervention for survivors of aggression. Topics such as child marriage and bride kidnapping practices in Kyrgyzstan, social norms underpinning violence against women, institutional organization of psychological service and sexual abuse have been at the center of Elena’s research and teaching. She has led funded projects investigating campus sexual harassment, intersections between gender violence and higher education, sexual and reproductive health, and perception of gender. Elena joins the Bard Psychology Program from American University of Central Asia (AUCA), where she has served as chair of the Department of Psychology; cochair and cofounder of the Center for Critical Gender Studies; and head of the Division of Social Sciences.

Selected Publications

  • Kim, E. (2025). Institutional ethnography for exploring psychological practice in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan: Explicating injustices in global knowledge production. Qualitative Psychology, 12(1), 52–68. https://doi.org/10.1037/qup0000309
  • Kim, E., Epstein, H., Ecke, J., Bardfield, J., Husseini, M., Kangbai, J. B., & Molchanova, E. (2024). Teaching Critical Reflection on Epistemic Injustice: The Case of a Collaborative International Public Health Course. Journal of College and Character, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1080/2194587X.2024.2348995
  • Kim, E. (2022). Competing discourses in the child protection system in Kyrgyzstan: Implications for redressing gender violence against girls. Child Indicators Research, 15(4), 1209–1232. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-021-09900-6

Kristin Lane

Associate Professor in Psychology (she/her/hers)

Education and Training

Degree Institution
B.A. University of Virginia
M.S. Yale University
Ph.D. Harvard University
Post-Doctoral Fellow Harvard University

Professor Lane is interested in how social thought, feeling, and behavior operate in a social context. With robust empirical evidence from the last few decades demonstrating how much of mental life takes place outside our conscious awareness has come the realization that people may hold two sets of attitudes toward a given object. Professor Lane is interested in implicit attitudes and beliefs (those that exist outside the bounds of conscious awareness and cannot be verbally reported evidence). In particular, her research focuses on implicit attitudes toward and beliefs about members of different social groups (race, class, gender, etc.). She investigates the fundamental ways in which such attitudes, identities, and beliefs operate: How do they form, and how are they connected? At the same time, Professor Lane is interested in ways in which such cognitions operate in the real world, and how an understanding of them can be applied to domains outside of the lab. Recent research explores the role of implicit attitudes and stereotypes in the gender gap in science participation.

Laboratory website: https://psychexp.bard.edu/

Selected Publications

  • Open Science Collaboration (2015). Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science. Science, 349(6251). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aac4716
  • Lane, K. A., Goh, J. X., & Driver-Linn, E. (2012). Implicit science stereotypes mediate the relationship between gender and academic participation. Sex Roles, 66, 220–234. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-011-0036-z
  • Kang, J. & Lane, K.A. (2010). Seeing through colorblindness: Implicit bias and the law. University of California (Los Angeles) Law Review, 465–520.

Sean O’Bryan

Assistant Professor in Psychology (he/him/his)

Education and Training

Degree Institution
B.A. Illinois Wesleyan University
Ph.D. Texas Tech University
Postdoctoral Research Associate Brown University

Professor O’Bryan investigates the cognitive and neural mechanisms that guide selective attention in learning, with a particular interest in how these mechanisms contribute to individual differences in behavior. Through explicit instruction, trial-and-error, or some combination thereof, most of us can observe tangible improvement in our performance when attempting to learn a new skill. Nonetheless, how quickly we accomplish this—and which strategies we use to arrive there—can vary substantially across individuals. To better understand these outcomes, Professor O’Bryan’s lab integrates cognitive neuroscience methods such as eye-tracking, neuroimaging, and modeling approaches to reveal how attentional priorities evolve in real time, leading to new insights about the brain and behavior in dynamic learning contexts. More broadly, Professor O’Bryan seeks to characterize the complex interactions between action, perception, and higher-level cognition. Professor O’Bryan’s ongoing projects explore the role of cognitive control in sensorimotor learning and the utility of pupil diameter as biomarker of cognitive and motor performance.

Selected Publications

  • O’Bryan, S.R., Moher, J., McCarthy, J.D., & Song, J.-H. (2024). Effector-independent representations guide sequential target selection biases in action. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 36(3) 492–507. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_02102
  • O’Bryan, S.R., Price, M.M., Alquist, J.L., Davis, T., & Scolari, M. (2024). Changes in pupil size track self-control failure. Experimental Brain Research, 242(4), 829–841. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-024-06781-3
  • O’Bryan, S.R., Jung, S., Mohan, A.J., & Scolari, M. (2024). Category learning selectively enhances representations of boundary-adjacent exemplars in early visual cortex. The Journal of Neuroscience, 44(3), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1039-23.2023

Frank Scalzo

Associate Professor in Psychology (he/him/his)

Education and Training

Degree Institution
B.A. St. Bonaventure University
M.A. State University of New York at Binghamton
Ph.D. State University of New York at Binghamton

Prior Faculty Position: University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

The Bard Behavioral Neuroscience Laboratory provides research opportunities in several areas of neuroscience. These include invertebrate behavior, immunohistochemistry, behavioral pharmacology, neurobehavioral teratology, and neuroanatomy. Laboratory research integrates the research interests of students and faculty and is focused on understanding the behavioral and neurobiological effects of exposure to environmental and other chemical substances whose primary mechanism of action is through the nervous system. Research is conducted using developing zebrafish (Danio rerio) as an animal model. Zebrafish provide an excellent model system for investigating a variety of environmental and pharmacological manipulations on neurobehavioral development in part due to their rapid growth and transparency during the larval stage that allows for the visualization of neuronal and other structures. Current research is focused on understanding the functional role of n-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor systems in zebrafish and how these systems can be perturbed by environmental and chemical insults. Behavioral, anatomical, psychopharmacological and artificial intelligence techniques are used in these investigations.

Selected Publications

  • Chen, B. & Scalzo, F. (2015). The effects of acute nicotine on larval zebrafish exploratory behavior in a complex environment. Presentation at Neurobehavioral Teratology Society, June 2015.
  • Swain H.A., Sigstad, C. & Scalzo, F.M. (2006). Effects of dizocilpine (MK-801) on circling behavior, swimming activity and place preference in zebrafish. Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 26, 725–729. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ntt.2004.06.009
  • Scalzo, F.M. & Levin, E.D. (2004). The use of zebrafish as a model system in neurobehavioral toxicology. Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 26, 707–708. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ntt.2004.06.008

Christa Schmit

Visiting Assistant Professor in Psychology (she/her)

Education and Training

Degree Institution
B.A. Bryn Mawr College
M.A. Cornell University
Ph.D. University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Professor Schmidt’s research is at the intersection of developmental, cultural, and social psychology. The main question she seeks to address through her research is: how can we best support children, adolescents, and emerging adults who are navigating multiple cultures on a daily basis (e.g., Asian Americans)? Her research has primarily focused on how factors across different levels of a young person’s environment (e.g., at home or in larger macro-society) can impact how they navigate and negotiate their cultures and identities. Her most recent work has focused on how Chinese American parents’ teaching of their Chinese and American cultures can foster a stronger bicultural identity among their children. Professor Schmidt applies multi-method research to elucidate these processes, including longitudinal, parent-child dyads, and qualitative interviews.

Selected Publications

Natalie Markowitz Wittlin

Assistant Professor in Psychology (she/her)

Degree Institution
B.A. Barnard College
Ph.D. Yale University
Post-Doctoral Fellow Princeton University

Professor Wittlin’s research explores how people experience both their own and other people’s genders, with a focus on affirmation and denial of identities. She has a particular interest in bodies and physical appearances and how they figure into gender-related psychological processes. Questions Professor Wittlin has explored in her research include: What stereotypes do cisgender people hold about transgender people’s appearances? How do cis people respond to feedback about the gendered nature of their own physical appearances? Does the mental health of trans youth change as they take steps to align their bodies with their identities through medical transition? Professor Wittlin conducts research at the intersections of social, clinical, and developmental psychology and has also worked in the fields of public health and education. Her research is both experimental and correlational, and she works with both adults and adolescents, collecting data online, as well as face-to-face.

Laboratory website: GEM lab

Selected Publications

  • Wittlin, N. M., Gallagher, N. M., Atwood, S., & Olson, K. R. (2025). Mental health during medical transition in a US and Canadian sample of early socially transitioned transgender youth. Journal of Adolescent Health, 76(2), 228–237. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2024.10.023

  • Wittlin, N. M., Gallagher, N. M., & Olson, K. R. (2024). Gender identity importance in cisgender and gender diverse adolescents in the US and Canada. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.12485

  • Wittlin, N. M., LaFrance, M., Dovidio, J. F., & Richeson, J. A. (2024). US cisgender women’s psychological responses to physical femininity threats: Increased anxiety, reduced self-esteem. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2023.104547