Kerem Oktar is a fifth-year PhD candidate at Princeton University. He studies the psychology of disagreement—from climate change to abortions, gun laws to vaccinations—using computational modeling, behavioral experiments, and qualitative methods. His research on how beliefs persist amid societal controversy has been recognized with the David Marr Prize from the Cognitive Science Society, and he has received numerous other awards for his teaching and research. He is excited to be co-designing a course on the psychology of justice that he will teach next semester at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women. Kerem, born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey, received degrees in economics and cognitive science from Pomona College. Before that, he worked in regulatory financial consulting, where he researched the use of machine learning for anti-money laundering. In his spare time, he likes to produce music and write short stories.
