
People at the Sociocultural Lab

Dr Apurv Chauhan
Lab Director
Lecturer in Social and Cultural Psychology
Dr Apurv Chauhan is the director of the Sociocultural Lab and a Lecturer in Social and Cultural Psychology. His research focuses on communication, identity, meaning, and the social construction of knowledge across contexts such as health, homelessness, and education.
Apurv served on BPS National Expert Group on Poverty (2020-21) and currently serves on the APA Division 5 Task Force on Indigenous Psychology.

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.

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.

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.
Alumni
- Mridusmita Bhagwati, PhD Candidate, IIT Kanpur, India
- Alice Purvor, King’s College London, UK
- Hiral Trivedi, Jindal Institute of Behavioral Science, JGU, Sonipat, India
- Ruyi Cheng, King’s College London, UK
- Natasha Etherington, University of Brighton, UK
- Ashley Reilly-Thornton, University of Brighton, UK
- Matilda Skipper, University of Brighton, UK