Teaching & Mentoring

As a teacher and mentor I aim to help students become more critical consumers of social science and better social science communicators. In the classroom, I work to equip students with tools that bridge the gap between a natural curiosity in human behavior and a systematic science that allows us to study it. In the lab, I enjoy collaborating with students across every stage of the research process, including brainstorming study ideas, leading participant recruitment, cleaning and analyzing data, and building presentations and papers that communicate our findings.

Classroom Teaching

Courses (Instructor of Record)

Promoting Change through Social Psychology — MA seminar, University of Oslo (Global Mobility, Inclusion, and Diversity in Society program); co-taught with Dr. Thomas Schubert and Dr. Charles Samuelson [Spring 2025; no student evaluations]

The Social Psychology of Inequality: Groups, Hierarchies, and Discrimination — BA seminar, Aarhus University Department of Psychology; co-taught with Dr. Lei Fan [Spring 2025; median instructor evaluation: 4.9/5.0]

Separating Fact from Fiction in Psychological Science — First-year BA writing-intensive seminar developed at the University of Michigan’s Sweetland Center for Writing. [Syllabus] [Assignments] [Fall 2021; median evaluation: 5.0/5.0]

Courses (Graduate Student Instructor)

Research Methods in Psychology (Lab instructor) — Winter 2020 & Fall 2020, taught two lab sections per semester [median evaluation: 4.9/5.0]

Co-created three critical pedagogy modules with Nadia Vossoughi and Colin Seifert; presented at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology conference (2021). [Modules (OSF)] [SPSP presentation (OSF)]

Introduction to Social Psychology (Section instructor) — Winter 2019 & Fall 2019, taught three discussion sections per semester [median evaluation: 4.9/5.0]

Introduction to Psychology (Graduate Student Instructor) — Winter 2021 [no student evaluations]

Teaching Certificates and Awards

Graduate Teacher Certificate (2024), University of Michigan

Provost’s Teaching Innovation Prize (2021), University of Michigan — annually recognizes the most innovative pedagogical projects across the University; awarded for “Inclusive Teaching in Research Methods Courses”

Research Mentoring

Dissertation/Thesis Committees

External examiner, Rikke Haudrum Rasmussen, Doctoral Dissertation Pre-Defense, Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen (2026)

Independent Research Advising

• Ariella Kushner (2021–2022): Infectious disease concealment research; honors thesis co-advised with Dr. Josh Ackerman — “To sneeze or not to sneeze: The interpersonal consequences of infectious disease concealment”
• Ariella Kushner (2020): Directed advanced research on social harm and infectious disease concealment
• William Gonzalez (2021): Directed advanced research on lay beliefs about scent and social class

Lab-Based Research Advising

Evolutionary Social Psychology Lab (Dr. Josh Ackerman, University of Michigan): Haley Henry, Cara Jhang, Jian Sun, Tessa Woryk, Caitlin Hoyng, Julia Salamango (2019); Ariella Kushner, Emmaleigh Krause, Lily Jankowiak (2020); Rachel Annex, William Gonzalez (Winter 2022); Yat Sum Leung, Dylan Selkin, Victoria Treder (Fall 2022); Arin Hirsch, Caitlin Fagel (Winter 2023)

Mind in Society Lab (Dr. Nick Camp, University of Michigan): Lee Hickman, Samantha Cole, Yi (Bella) Jin, Manjiang Shen (2022)