I am excited to say that I received the CGS/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation in Social Sciences award from Michigan Tech for 2022-2024! I'm proud to represent Tech, my department, and the field of applied cognitive science on a national level this way. (Tech Today article.) 

I am interested in how people question their perspectives or explanations of events, particularly in ambiguous situations. I believe studying strategies used to question perspectives can lead to effective methods for changing perspectives. As a social cognition researcher with an Applied Cognitive Science and Human Factors doctorate, I combine theoretical perspectives like motivated reasoning and sensemaking in analytical domains to understand how people form theories about events and what causes people to “undo” them.

My research involves studying sensemaking in ambiguous situations to determine the processes involved in questioning self-generated frames of those scenarios, as well as the effectiveness of strategies based on counterfactual reasoning to promote questioning one's frame. I have also been applying counterfactual strategies to encourage questioning in hiring paradigms, as a strategy to mitigate biased decision making.