Meet the Team

Dr. Dorsa Amir

Assistant Professor
& Director of MACLab

Dr. Dorsa Amir is an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University. She earned a B.S. in Anthropology from UCLA in 2012, a PhD in Anthropology from Yale University in 2018, and completed postdoctoral training in the Boston College and UC Berkeley Departments of Psychology. Dr. Amir's research investigates the routes through which culture shapes the developing mind, with a focus on the early determinants of preferences, judgments, and decision-making. You can learn more about Dr. Amir and her research at her personal website.

Julia Bainbridge

Lab Manager

Julia is the lab manager of the MAC Lab. She graduated from UC Santa Barbara in 2023 with a B.S. in Psychological & Brain Sciences and a minor in Sociocultural Linguistics. Julia previously researched intergroup empathy bias in children and the role of cultural phenomena in influencing children’s social decision-making. She is interested in how language enables children across cultures to learn about their social world.

Postdoctoral Researchers

Dr. Julia Smith

Postdoctoral Researcher

Dr. Julia Smith is a postdoctoral researcher in the MAC lab. She earned a B.S. in Psychology and B.A. in Intercultural Studies from Wofford College in 2015, a Master’s in Psychology from the New School for Social Research in 2018, and a PhD in Social Psychology from the University of Michigan in 2024. Her research focus is how people make normative “should” judgments about how they should think about and treat others, and how the world should work. See her personal website for more information!