Social Psychology Section Annual Conference 2024

Laura K. Taylor (PhD) is an Associate Professor in the School of Psychology at University College Dublin. She integrates developmental and social psychology with peace studies to examine positive development and social inclusion among children and youth in conflict-affected settings, such as Colombia, Croatia, Kosovo, Israel, Republic of North Macedonia, and Northern Ireland. She uses the Developmental Peacebuilding Model (Taylor, 2020) to study how multiple factors (e.g., family, school, nation) influence child development. 

Laura also focuses on children’s and youth’s agency, more specifically, how outgroup prosociality toward conflict rivals may be contribute to peacebuilding. Laura’s current research is funded by the EU H2020, Irish Research Council, Enterprise Ireland, John F. Templeton Foundation. She has over 100 peer-reviewed articles, almost half of which have student co-authors. Laura is a Consulting Editor for Child Development and the Journal of Research on Adolescence, and the Editor of the APA journal Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology. 

Stefania Paolini is Professor of Social and Intercultural Psychology at Durham University, UK. She completed her PhD at Cardiff University and held academic positions at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Stefania has expertise in intergroup dynamics; her work explores ‘when’ and ‘why’ experiences with individual members of stigmatized groups affect the judgement of the stigmatized group as a whole. Her very early research investigated the benefits for intergroup relations of direct and indirect intergroup friendships in sectarian Northern Ireland. She has published extensively on the topics of intergroup contact and friendship, intergroup anxiety and emotions, negative contact and valence asymmetries, stereotype and prejudice reduction interventions. Stefania’s research spans post-conflict and peaceful societies; it is highly cited and has demonstrated impact beyond academia in high profile policy reports. Stefania is passionate about EDI issues in academia, science, and broader society reflected in several science, service, and community awards. 

For more information on Stefania, visit: https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/stefania-paolini/

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xwUnA5IAAAAJ&hl=en

Dr Geetha Reddy, based at the Open University,  works within and outwith the psychological sciences to study and address social issues across disciplinary boundaries. They have co-edited three special issues on decolonising psychology together with the Readsura Decolonial Editorial Collective and a special issue titled "Towards a social psychology of precarity" with the British Journal of Social Psychology with Dr Clare Coultas and Dr Johanna Lukate. They are the Principal Investigator of the British Academy funded project "EXCAPE-URMI" that explores the legacies of colonialism which established racial, political, gender, and class hierarchies in Malaysia. They are also working on understanding how people make sense of community resilience, precarity and coloniality in other Global South countries such as South Africa and Brazil.