Intro. 

Here is an overview of my research program. The goal of my work is to connect social psychological research, theory, and methods to real world issues. Hence, the lines of research here are constantly fluid and evolving. Feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.  

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Research Statement

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My research examines how perceptual processes shape racial perception, intergroup dynamics, and identity outcomes, with a particular focus on racially ambiguous and understudied populations. We are motivated to perceive the social world accurately and to be seen accurately by others. However, racial ambiguity—when an individual is not easily categorized into existing social groups—can disrupt perception and produce systematic misperceptions, or incongruencies between how individuals are categorized by others and how they self-identify. I argue that these misperceptions are not random perceptual accidents, but psychologically meaningful errors that shape stereotyping, social decision-making, and identity-related experiences.

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This framework centers misperception as a core mechanism linking social cognition to lived experiences. Across my work, I center underrepresented Asian Americans, Multiracial, and Latine populations as a case to study how misperceptions influence judgments, intergroup behavior, and psychological well-being, while also considering how these processes vary across disaggregated racial and ethnic populations.

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One line of research investigates how racial ambiguity produces downstream consequences in person perception and evaluation. My work demonstrates that racially ambiguous individuals can receive both mis-categorizations (e.g., being perceived as a different racial group) and misattributed stereotypes, potentially resulting in additive biases that would be overlooked when researchers assume perceivers categorizations are accurate and individuals are racially prototypical. 

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A second line examines stereotype and meta-stereotype processes across disaggregated Asian American populations with an intersectional lens. This work highlights how treating Asian Americans as a monolithic category obscures meaningful psychological differences that shape intergroup dynamics that vary across Asian American subgroups. Shining a light on the differing intergroup concerns Asian Americans have based on their disaggregated ethnic and gender identities.    

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A third line focuses on identity experiences and well-being among Multiracial Asian individuals across social contexts. In this work, I examine how context diversity and identity denial experiences—particularly the source of denial from ingroup versus outgroup members—predict psychological outcomes such as stress and well-being. This research integrates social perception with identity development by examining how being misperceived by others influences mental health. 

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Together, my research advances a unifying theoretical contribution: social misperceptions represent a fundamental yet understudied mechanism in social psychology that connects perception, intergroup dynamics, and identity. By integrating perceptual processes with disaggregated population approaches, my work aims to connect and apply psychological theory to the the complexity of real-world social issues.

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