People

The people behind the research

Portrait of Mohammad Atari

Principal Investigator

Mohammad Atari

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences

Mohammad Atari is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he directs the Culture and Morality Lab. His research examines the intersection of culture, evolution, and morality: why morality binds people together, and how it can divide them into “us” versus “them.” He studies moral values and cultural change from a cultural-evolutionary perspective, combining social-psychological experimentation, fieldwork, and natural language processing. He joined UMass Amherst in fall 2023 and is a recipient of the SAGE Emerging Scholar Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

Interests: Culture · Morality · Cultural evolution · Historical psychology · Natural language processing

Graduate Students

7

Portrait of Aliah Zewail

Aliah Zewail

she/her

PhD Student, Social Psychology · NSF Graduate Research Fellow

Studies the historical origins of cultural and moral values and how they become embedded in institutions and AI.

Portrait of Hector J. Sosa

Hector J. Sosa

PhD Candidate, Social Psychology

Studies educational outcomes for underprivileged students and how culture shapes their experiences.

Portrait of Roya Mohammadsadegh

Roya Mohammadsadegh

PhD Candidate, Psychological and Brain Sciences

Studies human behavior and decision-making, with a focus on agency in human–AI collaboration.

Portrait of Fırat Şeker

Fırat Şeker

he/him

PhD Student, Social Psychology

Studies how morality and cooperation are shaped by ecological, cultural, and institutional shifts across history.

Portrait of Ali Hajian

Ali Hajian

PhD Student, Social Psychology

Explores the relationship between morality and conflict across history and cultures.

Portrait of Meriel Burnett

Meriel Burnett

PhD Student, Social Psychology

Studies how ecological factors shape personality, beliefs, and values over historical time.

Portrait of Deva Anand

Deva Anand

MS Student, Computer Science · Graduate Research Assistant

Builds the lab's research software and works on the computational methods behind its text analysis.

Undergraduate Research Assistants

2

Portrait of Sumaiya Tahsin

Sumaiya Tahsin

Intern

Studies how women’s financial dependency on men relates to differences in the moral judgment of men and women.

Portrait of Noor Skhiri

Noor Skhiri

Undergraduate Research Assistant · Lab Research Coordinator

Interested in how culture shapes morality, identity, and the way people understand and experience the world.

Alumni

2

Former members of the lab and where they went next.

Portrait of Aanchal Setia

Aanchal Setia

Ph.D., Social Psychology

Now a Data Scientist at Meta

Studied how people navigate assigned and professional identities, belonging, and upward mobility.

Portrait of Liora Morhayim

Liora Morhayim

she/her

Ph.D., Psychology of Peace & Violence

Now a Postdoctoral Researcher at Stockholm University

Studies the contextual factors, such as culture, that shape the effectiveness of intergroup interventions.

Former Undergraduate Research Assistants

41

Undergraduate researchers who contributed to the lab's work during their time at UMass.

Lab Life

Beyond the research

Fieldwork, conferences, and a lot of shared meals, a look at life in the lab.