Biography
Neranjana Iyer is a current Master's student working with faculty sponsor Dr. Benedek Kurdi as a graduate researcher in the Social Cognition Lab. Her project concerns morality judgements and implicit bias as they relate to public communications of scientific findings.
She received her B.S. in Cognitive & Behavioral Neuroscience from the University of California, San Diego in 2024. As an undergraduate tutor and teaching assistant, she provided instruction in university-level cognitive science and academic writing courses. Her undergraduate research concerned the development and assessment of different teaching and learning strategies based on cognitive science principles of learning and memory.
Research Interests
- How do social identities affect learning outcomes?
- Under what conditions are people motivated to learn about ideas that conflict with their beliefs?
- How can we make scientific findings accessible and interesting to the general public without compromising accuracy?
These are the questions that guide my research interests in cognition, education, and science communication. My previous work concerned the ways in which basic processes of learning and memory can be exploited to produce engaging and affirming teaching strategies for learners in historically under-served communities. Currently, I am interested in attributions of moral responsibility for implicit bias and how such attributions affect learning outcomes in implicit bias education.
Education
University of California, San Diego — B.S. Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience (Minors in Biology, Music)