Affective Science Graduate Student Fellowship

Max Fennell-Chametzky is a PhD Candidate in the History Department, where he studies the behavioral and life sciences in the 19th and 20th centuries. His dissertation examines the cultural phenomenon of "ape language studies" in the second half of the 20th century, with special interest paid to the emotional, imaginative, and empathetic aspects of psychology and linguistics.

I am interested in building machines that understand people. I explore topics in reasoning, discovery and social cognition.

Catherine's research explores the emotional and cognitive dynamics of disagreement, drawing inspiration from affective science, political science, and clinical psychology. Her work uses surveys and experiments to investigate how individuals interpret and resolve interpersonal and intergroup conflicts, particularly in the context of political or moral divides.

Ali is interested in moral psychology, intimacy, and emotional regulation. Her current project considers the concept of attention as a moral concept. 

Zhenchao examines interpersonal processes to understand identity and affect. By leveraging intensive longitudinal and computational methods, he aims to develop dynamic identity theory to inform strategies for optimizing interpersonal functioning and affective well-being.

Jared Moore is a PhD student in Computer Science and focuses on social reasoning. He works on the fundamental social abilities of large language models (LLMs), such as their capacity for theory of mind and persuasion, as well as how those abilities map onto the real world, such as how LLMs fail to perform various skills of therapy. Core to much of this work are questions about how emotion guides action. Before Stanford, he was a lecturer at the University of Washington where he taught classes on the math, philosophy, and ethics of AI. Spring 2025 he taught a class here at Stanford on "How to Make a Moral Agent."

Anaïs Voşki is a Ph.D. candidate in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER), minor in Psychology. Her research centers on the emotional dynamics of the global environmental crisis and their role in driving pro-environmental behaviors across diverse geographical contexts. She is currently exploring interventions that foster awe and behavior change, including leveraging the overview effect—the psychological shift experienced by astronauts upon viewing Earth from outer space.