Social, Group, and Cultural Processes

Dr. Jordan Epistola is a postdoctoral research fellow with the University of Maryland and the Consortium of Washington Universities. Born in Seattle as a first-generation Filipino American, he earned his Ph.D. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from the University of Maryland in 2022.

After graduation, Dr. Epistola worked as a Senior Data Analyst at Walmart HQ, applying I/O psychology principles combined with advanced analytics and machine learning solutions to automate processes, evaluate corporate programs, and identify insights to stakeholders.

Dr. Nathan Cheek (PhD, Princeton University) is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland, College Park. He studies how people make sense of their own and others' experiences and choices, with particular interest in biased beliefs that perpetuate and magnify inequality. Research in Dr. Cheek's lab has especially focused on people's beliefs about poverty and sexual harassment, and other recent work has investigated how people perceive their choices in relation to their identities and goals. Taking an interdisciplinary perspective, Dr.

Desiree (Desi) Jones is a President’s Postdoctoral Fellow working with Dr. Redcay. She began her career at Wellesley College, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Neuroscience and Psychology in 2016. Following graduation, Dr. Jones worked as a research assistant at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for two years before starting her graduate training at the University of Texas at Dallas. She completed her MS in Applied Cognition and Neuroscience in 2020, and received her PhD in Psychological Sciences in 2023.

I am a Lecturer in the Social Data Science Major and Department of Psychology at the University of Maryland. Go Terps! Previously, I earned my Ph.D. in Quantitative Psychology and MS in Applied Statistics from The Ohio State University in 2023 where I studied mediation (indirect effects), moderation (conditional effects), dyadic data, resampling methods, statistical power analysis, and data visualization. I have held numerous positions in industry and academia that have given me a unique approach to and view of research methods and statistics.

Dr. Oscar Barbarin is a Professor in the Department of African American Studies, with a  joint faculty appointment in the Department of Psychology.

Dr. Blanchard received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook . He was subsequently a predoctoral intern, postdoctoral NIMH fellow, and then faculty member at the Medical College of Pennsylvania, Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute. Following a faculty appointment at the University of New Mexico Dr. Blanchard moved to the University of Maryland where he has been since 1999. Dr.

Dr. Bernat received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Michigan, where he also completed an APA-accredited internship and postdoctoral work in Biomedical Engineering. He subsequently served as a Research Associate in Clinical Psychology at the University of Minnesota and then core faculty in Clinical Psychology at Florida State University. Dr. Bernat joined the Psychology faculty at the University of Maryland-College Park in 2013.

I am a Professor in the Department of Psychology (Clinical and CNS Area Groups), core faculty member of the interdepartmental Neuroscience and Cognitive Science (NACS) Doctoral Program and the Maryland Neuroimaging Center (MNC), and Director of the Affective and Translational Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Maryland. My work has been continuously supported by the NIH since 2016 and led to ~100 publications (h-index: 52).

My Research Philosophy. As a graduate student, my advisor impressed upon me the importance of being fair to science. His view and one that I’ve carried with me throughout my career was that the process of doing science is more important than the results one obtains. This view, that “process trumps output” is ever more relevant in today’s research climate. As a believer in the value of transparency and integrity, it is my view that science should be subject to the checks and balances made possible through open and transparent processes.