Terri Vescio’s research seeks to understand the factors that facilitate and temper the expression of sexism, racism, and heterosexism. Within that context, Terri is interested in the interplay between the stereotypic behaviors of powerful people and the consequences that those behaviors have for the emotions, motivation, and performance of low power women, gay men, and people of color. She also studies the role of hegemonic masculinity (as a personal identity and cultural ideology) in the maintenance of the status quo via political preferences, use and acceptance of sexual violence, preferences to dominate women, acceptance of violence against people of color.  She is particularly interested in how subtle and hegemonic processes reinforce and maintain the status quo. 

Katsumi Yamaguchi-Pedroza is a dual-title PhD student in Social Psychology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Katsumi aims to conduct research that addresses social inequalities and can be used to inform and improve lives of people who belong to historically underrepresented groups. By incorporating feminist theories and methodologies with psychological ones, she studies how intersecting social identities, such as race and gender, affect processes of power and experiences of prejudice. More specifically, Katsumi’s current research explores the unique threat that well-performing women of color present to white men and how sexual violence reinforces and maintains gender and racial disparities.

Katsumi received her B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Gender Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. Prior to graduate school, she worked as a lab manager at the University of California, Irvine. In her free time, Katsumi enjoys reading, yoga, and trying new recipes!

Katsumi's Google Scholar |Katsumi’s ResearchGate | Katsumi’s Twitter | 

Abigail Loviscky is a dual-title PhD student in Social Psychology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Abigail is broadly interested in identity threats, prejudice, and gender. She is currently examining how gender threats inspire prejudice toward LGBTQ+ identities. She is also working on the development of a framework that examines the differential pathways to prejudice dependent upon whether marginalized identites are visible or invisible. Ultimately, her work aims to explore how prejudice is psychologically motivated by the cultural construction of our identities, in order to develope effective prejudice reduction interventions. 

Abigail received her B.A. in Psychology and her B.A. in Women's Studies from the Pennsylvania State University. During and post-undergrad, she worked as a research assistant and subsequent lab manager for the Gender, Power, and Privilege Lab. She is currently celebrating her fifth year with the GPP lab!

Demet Başar is a PhD student in Social Psychology. Demet received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Psychology from Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara, Turkey. Demet worked as a research assistant and lab manager at MEF University in Istanbul before beginning her journey at Penn State. In her master’s thesis, she investigated attitudes towards stalking as a gender-based violence and its relationship with honor endorsement. Her research interests center around gender inequalities across and within cultures. She is particularly interested in consequences of gender-based discrimination, perceptions of gender-based violence, masculinity threats and endorsement of honor beliefs. She aims to study cultural norms and practices to perpetuate gender inequalities and gender-based violence. In her free time Demet likes to spend time with her cat, enjoys watching movies and cooking.

Demet's ResearchGate | Demet's Twitter | Demet's Google Scholar