People
Lab Director
Kevin J. Holmes [kjholmes (at) reed (dot) edu] [CV]
Kevin is an Associate Professor of Psychology. He came to Reed by way of Colorado College (Assistant Professor of Psychology for six years), UC Berkeley (Postdoctoral Fellow in Cognitive Science), Emory University (Ph.D. in Psychology: Cognition & Development), and Stanford University (M.A. in Psychology and B.A. in Human Biology). Outside the classroom and the lab, Kevin enjoys tennis (especially rooting for his favorite pros), theatre (especially musicals), and traveling (especially to NYC).
Lab Members and Affiliates
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Enriqueta Canseco-Gonzalez, Emerita Professor of Psychology Enriqueta retired in 2023 after teaching at Reed for 31 years. She continues to collaborate with Professor Holmes in the Thought Lab and with Professor Pitts in the SCALP Lab. When she's not doing research, Enriqueta enjoys playing tennis, kayaking, and hiking. She has also started a second career as an interpreter. |
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Daniela Buchillon-Almeida ’25 Daniela is a senior psychology major interested in cross-linguistic research, framing, and the relationship between language and emotion. She is also passionate about clinical psychology and public health. She hopes to one day be able to combine cognitive and clinical psychology to address public mental health challenges. In her free time, she enjoys knitting, language learning, and film photography. |
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Gor Hakobyan ’25 Gor was born and raised in Yerevan, Armenia and is a senior psychology major and a Russian minor. He is interested in how languages affect the way we perceive and think about the world. He is also very passionate about developmental and clinical psychology. In his free time, he gravitates toward writing poetry/comedy, playing video games, and spending time outdoors. |
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Amalia Shapira ’25 Amalia is a senior psychology major from Berkeley, California. She is interested in how linguistic framing affects people’s reasoning and judgments. She is also very interested in clinical and developmental psychology. Outside of psychology, she loves cooking, playing board games with friends, and getting to see live music. |
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Signe Slaughter ’25 Signe is a senior psychology major from Columbus, Ohio. She is interested in how linguistic framing influences attitudes and decision-making. Signe is particularly interested in studying how victim framing and social-pragmatic reasoning may be implicated in the trans and gay panic defenses. She is passionate about research that advances scientific understanding and is directly applicable to pressing social problems. She is also interested in topics such as self-framed victimhood and heroism, altruism, prejudice, and bias. In her free time, Signe enjoys exploring new neighborhoods in Portland, listening to live music, and experimenting with new recipes in her kitchen. |
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Rachel Thacker ’25 Rachel is from Anchorage, Alaska. She is a senior psychology major interested in the relationship between language and thought, and how language can shape an individual’s perception and judgments. She is very passionate about cognitive and developmental psychology. In her free time, she enjoys watching sitcoms, embroidering, crocheting, and hiking. |
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Kati Wolcott ’25 Kati is a senior psychology major, double minoring in Spanish and dance. She is interested in cross-cultural research on language and thought, the intersection of emotion and cognition, and the role of pragmatic inference in linguistic framing. She's passionate about investigating the real-world implications of framing in legal and political situations. She is also intrigued by developmental and social psychology. She spends her free time doing yoga, cooking, watching movies, backpacking, and going out dancing. |
Lab Alumni and Thesis Topics*
* for students who completed a senior thesis in the lab
2024
- Teresa Elliott
- Lena Kassin
- Emerson Schimmel
2023
- Ari Goldstein: Gender self-concept and linguistic encoding of gender
- Clarissa Madar
- Molly Moir: The trans panic defense and attitudes toward anti-trans violence
- Liantao (Tony) Shan: Anthropomorphic language and political reasoning
- Sarah Wu: AI, intentionality, and the perception of musical narrative
2022
- Andries Castellano
- Farhan James: Political ideology and attitudes toward Covid-19 vaccination
- Sirisha Krishnamurthy: Climate graph interpretation and political ideology
- Ella Rook: Linguistic framing and anti-fat bias
- Jinduo Wang: Intuitions about mathematical beauty and sublimity
2021
- Lili Davis: Victim framing and attitudes toward police violence
- Nan Elpers
- Sage Schwartz: ADHD, physical activity, and executive functioning
- Maya Star-Lack
- Lux Steinberg: Effects of grammatical gender on object concepts
- Boshang (Cici) Yin: Self-victim framing and attitudes toward sexual assault
2020
- Evan Doherty: Syntactic framing effects and pragmatic reasoning
- Gabriela Garcia
- Wyatt Newhall: Spatial navigation heuristics and local topography
- Olivia Schultz
- Eli Thornburg
- Daniel Walsh: Affect labeling and emotional experience
- Theresa Westphal
2019
- Josh Alvarado
- Emily Gardner: Cross-linguistic analogical reasoning and essentialism
- Quinn Husney
- Frances Murray
- Casey Pollard
- James van der Vord
- Hannah Warden
- Alice Wu
2018
- Ula Adamska
- Ian Carey
- Noella Garcia-Soberañez
- Andrew Kopel: Effects of language on spatial cognition
- Andrés Madrigal
- Dolma Rabgay
- Robby Welch: Categorical perception of color and discrimination difficulty
2017
- Candelaria Alcat: Spatialization of emotional intensity and valence
- Katlyn Frey: Implicit effects of classifier categories on object perception
- Andrew Kirvin-Quamme
- Erin Luby: Linguistic diversity and essentialist beliefs
- Ruthie Rabinovitch: Spatial mappings in sign languages
- Ben Smotrich
- Tia Tummino
2016
- Andrew DesLauriers
- Laura DiRusso: Environmental effects on spatial reasoning
- Samantha Ellner: Word meaning and dyslexia
- Adam Hunter: Cognitive mechanisms underlying mindfulness meditation
- Jacob Jones
- Taylor LeFevre
- Julia Liao
- Dani Meyer
- Nico Ravitch: Language and categorical perception of color
- Alison Rowe
2015
- Jake Brodsky: Bilingualism and gender essentialism
- Eileen Kitrick
- William Rushton: Artistic experience and holistic face processing
- Jenny Wool
- Hadar Zeigerson: Lateralized categorical perception of facial expressions
2014
- Claire Binder
- Katie Brady: The role of attention in lateralized categorical perception
- Kelsey Moty: Categorical perception of spatial relations across languages