Research

My academic projects primarily focus on judgement and decision-making using empirical data and experimental methods. I am also interested in assessing research integrity and reproducibility. I adopt a social-cognitive lens to explore questions like:

How can we quantify the accuracy of our judgements and decisions?
When are our decisions considered rational versus biased?
How and to what extent do our motivations and prejudices influence reasoning?
How do people use stereotypes when making predictions about others?

My current work largely evaluates multi-year, nationally-funded research projects across various domains.

Current Work

Transition to Organic Partnership Program (TOPP)

I support nationwide evaluation activities for USDA's organic agriculture program that has 165+ partner organizations, certified 260,000+ acres as organic, and served 3600+ mentoring relationships.

Innovation Corps (I-Corps™)

I am co-leading quantitative and qualitative analyses for National Science Foundation's I-Corps regional hub. Overall, this program has trained 2,500+ research teams, launched 1,400+ startups, and raised $3B+ in funding.

Science and Technologies for Phosphorous Sustainability (STEPS)

I am co-leading mixed methods research across 15+ institutions on National Science Foundation's convergence research program. This work helps validate research and learning outcomes, influencing $25M+ in future investments.

Precise Advanced Technologies and Health Systems for Under-resourced Populations (PATHS-UP)

My research assesses how effectively workforce development efforts, from K-12 to graduate students, prepare the next generation to bring afforadable healthcare solutions to underserved communities.

Selected Publications

Cognitive ability but not cognitive reflection predicts expressing greater political animosity and favouritism

Cassario, A.L., Vallabha, S., Thompson, J. L., Carrillo, A., Solanki, P., Gnall, S.A., Rice, S., Wetherell, G.A., & Brandt, M. J.

Stress testing predictive models of ideological prejudice

Thompson, J. L., Cassario, A.L., Vallabha, S., Gnall, S.A., Rice, S., Solanki, P., Carrillo, A., Brandt, M. J., & Wetherell, G.A.

Stereotypes as Bayesian prediction of social groups

Solanki, P. & Cesario, J.

The nature of racial superhumanization bias

Solanki, P. & Cesario, J.

Selected Conference Presentations

Midwestern Psychological Association, 2022

Intervention to Reduce Mental Illness Prejudice by Altering Perceived Unpredictability

My first conference presentation as a graduate student in USA!

Society for Personality & Social Psychology, 2023

Socio-Demographic Correlates of Social Dominance Orientation & Right-wing Authoritarianism

A large scale project analyzing trends & creating data visualizations using big data (> 2M observations).

Society for Personality & Social Psychology, 2024

Testing Impression Formation from a Bayesian Perpective

Presenting my dissertation findings on how people use different sources of information when forming impressions of others.

Skills and Expertise

Statistics & Data Viz

RStudio Python SPSS PsychoPy Quarto Tableau

Survey Software

Qualtrics Pavlovia Prolific

Others

SQL LaTeX