First Year Graduate Student

Kyler Jones

I am a first-year graduate student in the Language and Cognition program. Raised in southeast New Mexico, my community offered me rich exposure to both the language of Spanish and the culture of Christianity. During my undergrad at Oregon State University, I came to understand the bidirectionality of language and culture—that the two influence each other. My research interests center around using cognitive psychology to understand how context and culture influence the automatic mental processes involved in communication and language processing. I hope to learn how shared meaning and semantic alignment are achieved, and I am particularly interested in studying whether or not religion significantly influences differences in semantics. When not participating in research, I enjoy playing video games and doing puzzles. You may also occasionally find me bouldering or roller-skating.

Fifth Year Graduate Student

Emma Wedell

I am a 5th year PhD student from the Central Coast of California. I studied psychology as an undergraduate at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California. After graduating with my bachelor's degree, I received my master's degree in experimental psychology from William & Mary. My cross-disciplinary research interests broadly pertain to equity at multiple levels: individual (e.g., substance use & other mental health disparities), interpersonal (e.g., interracial dialogue), and structural (e.g., confrontation of institutional discrimination). Additionally, I am interested in applying scale development, psychometrics, and mixture modeling techniques to my research interests. As such, I have enjoyed building connections with various collaborators as part of my graduate studies. Outside of the lab, I love to make pasta from scratch, play frisbee with friends, and mess around on my guitar!