Current Lab Members
Principal Investigator
Amanda Diekman
Amanda Diekman is the director of the Social Roles Lab at Indiana University. She is a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. Her longstanding interest is in gender roles, and especially how gender roles have remained stable and changed over time. The major focus of her research currently is using role congruity theory to understand why women opt out of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields. For more information, contact her directly at abdiekma@iu.edu.
Postdoctoral Researchers
Shahana Ansari
Shahana Ansari is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Social Roles Lab. Her work examines the effects of social contexts on conceptions of race and racial stereotypes, biases, and prejudice. With a particular interest in examining these questions in educational settings, Shahana applies this work by using data driven strategies to facilitate education reform across all levels of education.
Graduate Students
Alex Tran
Alex Tran (Trần Ngô Quang Anh) is a first-year graduate student from Vietnam advised by Amanda Diekman. He is particularly interested in the psychology of the -isms, bias, prejudice, and interminority coalition. His prior work has focused on the intersectionality of race and gender in social cognition.
Andrew White
Andrew White is a fourth year graduate student advised by Amanda Diekman. His research interests broadly focus around motivation, stereotyping, and diversity science. Ongoing research projects involve multiple goal pursuit across goal content, stereotyping of the socially mobile, and intersectional stereotype content.
Affiliated Graduate Students
Samantha Heiman
(she/her/hers) studies the development of social norms and the ways in which identity impacts adherence to these norms. She is also broadly interested in processes related to conceptualizations of identity and the self. Samantha is currently a third year doctoral student in Dr. Ed Hirt's, Social Pyschological Study of Motivation and Performance Lab.
Undergraduate Research Assistants
Nia Bailey
Nia Bailey is a senior majoring in psychology. Her research interests include mental health, how childhood affects mental illness, racial inequality and discrimination, and motivation.
Nicole Langston
Nicole Langston is a junior majoring in psychology. Her research interests include social roles in educational environments, social stigma, and how social roles impact the behavior of an individual.
Izett Murphy
Izett Murphy is a senior majoring in psychology. Her research interests include mental health, the impact of social roles on behavior, and stereotypes.
Nela Riddle
Nela Riddle is a sophomore majoring in computer science and math. Nela's research interests include female inclusion and retention in STEM-based fields such as computer science and robotics and the effects of the portrayal of STEM as collaborative vs. competitive.
Anna Sarpong
Anna Sarpong (she/her/hers) is a sophomore studying neuroscience at Indiana University. Her research interests include implicit bias, cognition, and decision-making and the role these concepts have on racial perspectives.