SOCIOCULTURAL LAB

Asrar Kayal

PhD Candidate, ESRC Scholar

Asrar is an ESRC DTP student working under Apurv’s supervision. Her PhD thesis examines the psychological legacy of intra-communal violence within the Palestinian indigenous community in Israel. She is a licensed educational psychologist.

Wen Zhang

Incoming PhD Candidate

Wen is starting her PhD in the lab in September 2025. She holds an MSc in Counselling Studies from the University of Edinburgh and will qualify as a BACP psychotherapist in September 2025. Wen’s doctoral work will investigate the cultural, pedagogical, and psychosocial challenges encountered by Chinese international students in the UK. It will examine how discrepancies between pre-arrival expectations and lived realities shape processes of identity negotiation, adaptation, and psychological wellbeing.

Juliana Lopez Castano

PG Research Project Student

Juliana is writing her MSc Dissertation in the lab as a part of the Interviews project. She is interested in in exploring the social and cultural dynamics that shape individuals’ experiences and perspectives, with the goal of fostering more inclusive and meaningful research practices.

Anushka De

Senior Intern

Anushka read psychology at KCL pursuing a career in Clinical Psychology. Her academic interests include the intersection of culture, gender and mental health and accessible science communication. Her dissertation explored differences in syntactic measures of speech in individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis. In the lab, she is investigating the cultural patterning of sympathy hypothesis within Islamic countries.

Aratrika Datta

Senior Intern

Aratrika has completed her Bachelor’s in Psychology from the Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi. Her research interests lie in social justice, intergroup relations, and studying the impact of lived experiences on mental health. In the lab, she is involved in a project that explores the representation of victims of sexual crimes in Indian media.

Disha Das

Senior Intern

Disha read psychology at King’s College London. She wrote her undergraduate dissertation on the intersection between loneliness and solitude preference using secondary data analysis in R. She is interested in using quantitative methods to study human decision-making in applied contexts. In the lab, she is investigating the cultural patterning of sympathy hypothesis within Islamic countries. In the lab, she is investigating the cultural patterning of sympathy hypothesis in countries in the Southern hemisphere.

Karya Tutuncim

Intern

Karya is a BSc Psychology student at Aix-Marseille University, pursuing a career in social psychology research. Her academic interests include cross-cultural research, gender inequalities, and social representations. In the lab, she is investigating the cultural patterning of sympathy hypothesis within Islamic countries.

Elif Ozkan

Intern

Elif is a third-year Psychology student at Middle East Technical University with a minor in Sociology. Her research interests are on social identity, migration, and cultural psychology. In the lab, she is involved in the voices of homelessness project but is also involved in the cultural patterning of sympathy project where her focus is on Turkey.

Dr Surbhi Sehgal

University of Brighton

Surbhi is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Business and Law, University of Brighton. Her research looks at emotions during periods of change. She collaborates with the lab on collective emotions and text analysis.

Vivek M Belhekar

University of Mumbai

Vivek is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Psychology, University of Mumbai. His work looks at evolutionary psychology, cross-cultural psychology, and psychological aspects of economic behavior. He collaborates with the lab on methodological issues and approaches in computational analysis in social sciences.

Chetan Sinha

OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat

Chetan Sinha is a Professor of Psychology at OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat. He teaches critical psychology of law, psychology of education, and neuroscience and law. He is broadly interested in the social psychology of power in the educational context.

Himanshu Singh

Texas A&M University

Himanshu is a Computer Scientist trained at Texas A & M University, specialising in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.