Evolution, Culture, and Stereotyping lab

OLIVER Sng, assistant professor

Oliver received his PhD in social psychology from Arizona State University, and was a research fellow at the University of Michigan. Currently, he is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California Irvine.

Among the many random things he did as an undergrad, he followed and studied a group of long-tailed macaques in the natural forests of Singapore. The lady you see in the linked photo is Sophia, one of the first female macaques he named and learned to identify.

His research interests are in evolution, culture, and stereotyping, broadly defined. He applies ideas and principles from non-human animal behavior to the study of human social psychology.

KRYSTINA BOYD-FRENKEL, PHD STUDENT

Krys is a Ph.D. Student in the Department of Psychology, and received her B.S. in Psychology from Arizona State University. Throughout her undergraduate studies, she explored sexual estimation and error management theory. Broadly, she is interested in applying an evolutionary approach to topics such as mating, intra- and intergroup relations, and stereotyping and prejudice. Currently, she is interested in how aspects of the environment we live in/grew up in (e.g., unpredictability) affect our cognitions and behaviors in order to best deal with the opportunities and threats raised by the particular environment.

In her free time, she likes to play with her cats and learn how to cook new things.

HOJEONG LEE, PHD STUDENT

Hojeong is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Psychology. He received his B.A. in Psychology from Sogang University and an M.A. in Cultural and Social Psychology from Korea University. His research interests broadly span prosociality, ecology, and NLP. Ultimately, he wants to find out how we understand our surrounding environments and how these perceptions affect our values using diverse methods such as experiments, archival data analysis, and natural language processing. [See his Notion website here]

Recently, he has developed a passion for brewing coffee – any recommendations for tasty beans are welcome!

Minyoung CHOI, PHD (2026)

Minyoung received her Psychology Ph.D. in 2026. Her research interests include how different ecologies determine the costs and benefits of social life from an evolutionary perspective. She is also interested in applying evolutionary approaches to research on social relationships and subjective well-being, specifically how surrounding ecologies shape the roots of life satisfaction judgments as well as the functions of affective forecasts. She received her B.A. and M.A. in Psychology from Yonsei University.

Mertcan Güngör, PHD (2026)

Mertcan received his Psychology Ph.D. in 2026. His research interests include motivated reasoning, partisanship, and intellectual humility. He is currently interested in how people react to offensive beliefs, both in the public and the private sphere. He received his B.A. and M.A. in Psychology from Boğaziçi University in Turkey.

NARUMI IINO-SEIKI, POST-BACC (2026)

Narumi was a post-baccalaureate student in the lab between 2025-2026, where she explored how ecological factors and life experiences shape self and social identities, social attitudes, and life goals in the EVOCS lab. She is now pursuing a PhD at the University of Kansas.

She completed her undergraduate degree in psychology at the University of Melbourne in 2010, followed by a Psychology Honours program at the Australian National University in 2012. After graduating, she spent a decade in Japan working as a business consultant and manager, specializing in helping large international companies navigate and thrive through crises.

Shiri Spitz Siddiqi, PHD (2025)

Shiri received her Psychology Ph.D. in 2025. She works at the intersection of morality and politics using a mixture of experimental, survey, and big data methods. She is particularly interested in how contemporary culture war issues - which necessitate coalition-building and allegiance-signaling - relate to ongoing political polarization. She is now a Senior Researcher at the Heterodox Academy.