December 7, 2024

Roundup: My First Semester as a Post-Doc at Princeton

As Princeton thaws from under last week’s snow hurricane, I’m taking a moment to reflect on my first four months in the place I now call home.

This roundup post shares highlights from my first semester as a post-doc in Psychology, CITP, and Sociology.

Here in Princeton, I’m surviving winter in the best way I know how 🙂

So far, I have had an amazing experience:

  • The Paluck Lab (Psychology) and the Center for IT Policy, my main anchor points at Princeton, have been welcoming and supportive. When colleagues from both departments showed up at my IgNobel Prize viewing party in my first month, I knew I had found a good home <grin>
  • The Paluck Lab have become a wonderful research family, and they even did the LEGO duck challenge together with me!
    • Weekly lab meetings with the Paluck Lab have been a master-class in thinking about the relationship between research design and theory in the social sciences. I am so grateful to observe and participate in these conversations, since so much about research is unspoken, tacit knowledge.
    • With the help of my new colleagues, I’ve started to learn how to write papers for general science journals. I’ve also learned more about publishing in the field of psychology.
  • At CITP, I’ve learned much about thinking simultaneously as a regulator and computer scientist.
  • I’ve loved the conversations at the Kahneman-Treisman Center for Behavioral Policy, where I am now an affiliated postdoc
  • I’m looking forward to meeting more of my colleagues in Sociology this spring, now that I’ll be physically based in Princeton more consistently

Travel and Speaking

 

View of the French Alps from Lausanne

 

I’m so glad that I can scale down my travel this spring, phew!

A flock of birds takes flight in Antigua, Guatemala

 

Writing and Research

Princeton Life

Rockefeller College Cloisters, Princeton. On evenings when I have dinner here, I walk through these cloisters on my way hime.