Social Learning Lab

Hyowon Gweon

CV | Bio | hyo [at] stanford.edu

I'm broadly interested in understanding the human ability to communicate – in particular, how we learn from others and teach others. My research brings together various approaches, aiming to provide a unified description of the cognitive and neural mechanisms that underlie the representations and inferential processes that allow us to learn and share about the world. As the PI of the Social Learning Lab, I'm thrilled to explore these questions with amazing people who all love to "learn from one another”!

Kaelin Main

I am broadly interested in understanding both how children learn and teach others. More specifically, I am interested in researching the factors that predict children’s motivation, and how that relates to their perception of themselves and their peers. How do different social factors and environments impact cognitive development? Through this work, I seek to advance our understanding of cognitive development and social cognition.

Kat Adams Shannon

kat.adams [at] stanford.edu

Kat studies how young children adapt their attention and learning behaviors to best match different early environments, with particular focus on understanding variability and strengths in contexts of early adversity. A key aim of her research is to create and collaborate on innovative uses of technology and statistical methods to support education and developmental science.

Junyi Chu

junyichu [at] stanford.edu

I’m interested in the nature and development of problem-solving. A major theme of my research is play: what makes some problems more attractive or satisfying? Why do we play, and what is it good for? By studying how goals and motivations structure reasoning and decision-making, I seek to understand how human minds adapt to new problems, and how we imagine and construct entirely new ones.

Antonia Langenhoff

antonial [at] stanford.edu

I am interested in the rich inferences children draw from everyday social experiences, such as disagreements. What cognitive mechanisms underlie these inferences? How do they drive learning and cognitive development? And to what extent do they vary based on particular social goals or cultural values? By answering these questions, I aim to advance our understanding of how human development unfolds within complex and dynamic social environments.

Karla Perez

perezke [at] stanford.edu

I am interested in the cognitive underpinnings of how humans communicate about themselves! Something so simple as knowing your own preferences, for instance, requires quite abstract generalizations. Furthermore, social context—e.g., who we speaking with, and where we are—matters for how and what we share. More generally, I am trying to understand what it means to have a self concept, and what this entails for our cognitive theories.

Adani Abutto

aabutto [at] stanford.edu

Humans start off as universal novices in a world with lots to discover. I’m interested in how we build an understanding of the social and physical world around us, especially how we iterate on our understanding of ourselves and our capabilities as causal agents within that world. I’m excited about using behavioral and computational methods to understand the drivers and cognitive mechanisms underlying these processes!

Peter Zhu

pgzhu [at] stanford.edu

Humans are active learners and teachers - we integrate information from our environment, reason over it, and transmit it to others. I am interested in the processes and representations that enable this ability and their foundations in development. I hope to use a wide variety of methods to uncover more about how both children and adults learn and reason about our social world.

Misha O'Keeffe

mokeeffe [at] stanford.edu

As a recent graduate from UW-Madison (2024) with a background in physics, economics, and psychology, I'm really interested in how we think about other minds and pretty much everything that goes into this reasoning. More recently, I've been interested in how we can model these sorts of things across development. Outside of the lab, I love being outdoors, reading, and spending time with friends. Feel free to connect via email or visit my personal website at mishaokeeffe.com.

Felicity Chang

fxchang [at] stanford.edu

I am studying Symbolic Systems (Human-Centered AI) and Computer Science at Stanford. I’m broadly interested in how we reason about ourselves and our environments. At the SLL, I’m working with Peter Zhu on a joint project with the Stanford Vision and Learning Lab (SVL) which focuses on human reasoning in virtual reality. 

Zadie Diniz

zdiniz [at] stanford.edu

My name is Zadie, and I am a member of the class of 2028! As a Psychology major and Education minor, my research interests primarily include childhood development and how children best learn and process information. I started working with the Social Learning Lab at the beginning of April 2024, and have loved interacting with and observing children throughout our research!

Maya Gilliam

mgilliam [at] stanford.edu

I am a junior majoring in Psychology at Stanford University. Specifically, I am interested in the Judgement and Decision-making aspect of Psychology, and I am curious to learn more about how children investigate and make sense of the world and how this interpretation affects future behavior. In the Social Learning Lab, I work with Antonia Langenhoff exploring how disagreement influences child inquiry.

Noelle Ingram

noellepi [at] stanford.edu

I am a junior at Stanford University majoring in Psychology, with a focus on the Early Childhood Cognition, Learning, and Development pathway. I am broadly interested in how children learn and develop, particularly through the lenses of neuroscience and social psychology. In the Social Learning Lab, I work with Antonia Langenhoff on research exploring rational thinking and how children understand and navigate disagreement. 

Dana Kim

danakim [at] stanford.edu

I am a sophomore at Stanford University majoring in Psychology with a focus on the pre-law track. I'm specifically interested in developmental psychology, particularly in the unique ways children perceive and interact with their environment. I am fascinated by the ways in which children's behaviors can both mirror and diverge from those of adults. Currently, I am working with Adani Abutto to explore how children respond and adapt to disadvantageous circumstances.

Samantha Kim

skim2028 [at] stanford.edu

I am a sophomore at Stanford University exploring the Psychology major. I am interested in how people learn about themselves and form beliefs that guide their actions in social environments. At the Social Learning Lab, I work with Peter Zhu on a project exploring children’s use of mental simulations to make inferences about their own abilities and determine future actions. 

Joanne Lee

jlee2028 [at] stanford.edu

I am a rising sophomore at Stanford majoring in Psychology and pursuing the pre-med track. I am interested in understanding how children make sense of their thoughts and behaviors during social interactions, particularly the cognitive processes that shape their curiosity. Currently, I am working with Peter Zhu on a research project exploring children's social curiosity and their ability to reason their preferences for learning more about themselves versus others.

Yuna Lee

ynlee418 [at] gmail.com

From the moment they are brought into the world, babies are busy experimenting with their limits and their environment while also learning to express their understanding of the world. I am interested in how their capabilities, the environment, and social interactions (caregivers, teachers, other children, older children, etc.) impact their learning experiences, and hope to better understand various factors that drive learning behaviors in babies and young children.

Annabelle Rehn

arehn [at] stanford.edu

I am a sophomore at Stanford University majoring in Economics and Psychology, with a strong interest in rational thinking and decision-making processes in children. I am particularly interested in how these cognitive abilities develop throughout childhood, and how a child's environment and relationships may shape this development. In the Social Learning Lab, I work with Antonia Langenhoff on exploring rational thought and disagreement in children.

Sophie Bridgers [Website]

Sophie was a PhD student in the lab, supported by NSF GRFP; she defended her dissertation in May 2020, titled Social reasoning in action: Social-cognitive mechanisms supporting prosocial decisions in early childhood.

She is now a post-doctoral researcher at Harvard (Tomer Ullman) and MIT (Laura Schulz).

Natalia Vélez [Website]

Natalia was a PhD student in the lab, supported by NSF GRFP and NIH F99/K00 D-SPAN Fellowship. She defended her dissertation in May 2020, titled Minds, groups, and populations : harnessing the latent structure of social information .

She completed her post-doc training at Harvard (Sam Gershman, Fiery Cushman), and is now an Assistant Professor at Princeton (Dept of Psychology).

Mika Asaba [Website]

Mika was a PhD student in the lab, supported by NSF GRFP. She defended her dissertation in June 2021, titled Social learning and communication about the self .

She is now a post-doctoral researcher at Yale (Julia Leonard, Julian Jara-Ettinger).

Griffin Dietz

Griffin was a PhD student in the lab, supported by NSF GRFP. She defended her dissertation in May 2022, titled Cognitively appropriate and readily accessible computing education technology for young learners.

Aaron Chuey

Aaron was a PhD student in the lab. He defended his dissertation in June 2025, titled Theory of Minds: Early understanding of interacting minds.

He is now a post-doctoral researcher at Harvard (Ashley Thomas).

Yang Wu [Website]

Yang was a postdoctoral researcher in the lab, supported by NSF.

She is now an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto Scarborough.