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PhD Students
Brianna McAloon
Brianna is a first-year PhD student in the Social Psychology program at New York University. She completed her BS in Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience at North Central College in Naperville, IL, and her MS in Research Psychology at DePaul University in Chicago, IL. Her research focuses on motivation and the self, specifically work in topics such as time management, inclusion, and well-being. Outside of the lab, Brianna enjoys sharing stories, baking, and searching for the best food in NYC.
Sherry Xiong
Sherry is a third-year doctoral student in the Social Psychology Program at NYU. She received her BA in Psychology and Media Analytics in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her research interests center around emotions and motivation. Her primary line of research focuses on the concept of psychological closure, a subjective sense of completion and readiness to move on. Sherry is interested in what contributes to psychological closure over past events or the ending of a period of time. In her free time, Sherry likes to do song recording, go hiking, and watch drama.
Yingfan Zhang
Yingfan is a first-year PhD student in the Social Psychology program at New York University. She completed her BA in Psychology at the University of Waterloo and her MA at NYU. Her research focuses on strategies to help people resist short-term temptations that interfere with their long-term goals. Currently, she is investigating how mental contrasting can reduce smartphone scrolling. Yingfan also loves to enjoy the nature and go to the gym.
Postdoctoral Fellow(s) and Lab Affiliates
Yooeun Jeong
Postdoctoral Associate in the NYU Motivation Lab
Yooeun earned her B.A. in Political Science and International Relations from Seoul National University in South Korea, and her M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Leadership and Organizational Psychology from BI Norwegian Business School in Norway. Her research broadly focuses on psychological rigidity—examining how and why individuals become mentally, behaviorally, or ideologically inflexible, and the implications of such rigidity for individual and collective outcomes. She is also interested in applying emerging methodologies to psychological research, including data mining and large language models. Currently, she is involved in projects investigating misplaced certainty and its connection to political and societal conflict.
SunYoung Kim
Postdoctoral Associate in the NYU Motivation Lab
SunYoung is a postdoctoral researcher at NYU and a co-lab manager in the Motivation Lab. She received her B.A. (2016) and M.A. (2018) in Psychology from SungKyunKwan University (SKKU), South Korea, and her Ph.D. (2025) in Psychology from New York University. Her research broadly focuses on motivation and behavior change, and she has worked on topics such as future fantasies, mental contrasting, insight, interpersonal relationships, and group dynamics.
Yijun Lin
Visiting Lecturer at New York University
Yijun is a visiting lecturer at New York University, focusing on motivation, emotion, and subjective well-being. Specifically, her research investigates why people fail to go to bed on time, when procrastination can be harmless, and how boredom fosters meaningful and adaptive behavior. She received a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Florida, an M.S. in Integrated Marketing from New York University, and a B.S. in Psychology from Beijing Normal University. Currently, she is studying the bright side of misplaced certainty and the societal factors driving quiet quitting.
Simona Sciara
Birte Thissen
Postdoctoral fellow in the NYU Motivation Lab
Birte Thissen is a postdoctoral fellow in the NYU Motivation Lab through the German Research Association’s Walter Benjamin postdoctoral fellowship award. She obtained her B.A. and M.A. in Psychology in Germany at the University of Münster and the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and her PhD at the Goethe University Frankfurt and the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics. Her research focuses on flow, the optimal experience of being completely engaged with a goal-oriented activity. She is currently working on a project investigating the effect of self-regulation strategies on the occurrence of flow.
Sandra Wittleder
Post-doctoral Fellow / Project Manager at the MOTIVATE Lab, NYU Langone
Sandra completed her Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Hamburg and was a Visiting Scholar at the Department of Psychology at NYU. Sandra is passionate about understanding the cognitive processes underlying health behavior change, and finding new multidisciplinary approaches to health interventions.
Hong Zhang
Post-doctoral Fellow at the Institute of Psychology at Leuphana University, Germany
Hong completed her Ph.D. in management and marketing at the Free University of Berlin. She has been researching with the Motivation Lab since August 2020. Hong’s research is grounded in a broad interest in people’s cognition, motivation, and emotion in joint decision-making processes. Her ongoing research focuses on the effects of envy on individuals’ perceptions, behaviors, and outcomes in negotiations.
Masters Student Research Assistants & Honors Students
George Ryan Ghorayeb
Binquan (Blaine) Liu
Blaine is a second-year master’s student in the Industrial/Organizational Psychology Program at NYU. He received his BS in Applied Psychology with a minor in Computer Science. He is currently working with Sherry Xiong on the projects concerning “well-rounded” endings and the effects on closure. Additionally, Blaine is working on a thesis on how motivation contributes to performance and turnover decisions in organizational settings.
Arielle M.
Bumin Ko
Bumin is a first-year master’s student in the General Psychology program at NYU. She received her BS from University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign with Cum Laude. Currently, she is completing her Master’s Thesis with Dr. Birte Thissen, analyzing results in the flow experience. She hopes to examine the interplay between internal and external motivational factors and their impact on personal growth and development.
Lexie Cieluch
Lexie is a first-year master’s student in the General Psychology Program at NYU. She received her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota where she studied finance. She is interested in researching cognitive and behavioral self-regulation techniques. She is currently collaborating with SunYoung Kim to study self-regulation techniques to reduce academic procrastination.
Monty Monlux
Monty is a master’s student in the General Psychology program at New York University. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology with honors from the University of California, Berkeley. Under the mentorship of Dr. Birte Thissen, he is currently conducting his master’s thesis on the factors that influence flow states. His research interests include human performance, collaboration, and self-regulation.
Inara Sharma
Inara is a first-year M.A. student in the General Psychology program, specializing in consumer behavior and cognitive neuroscience. She earned her B.S. in Psychology with a minor in International Business from Santa Clara University, where she also competed on the Division I women’s golf team. Her research interests center on flow states, motivation, and performance across both athletic and organizational contexts. Under the mentorship of Dr. Birte Thissen, she is conducting her thesis research on flow and clutch states in athletes, with a focus on interventions that influence the frequency of these experiences.
Shriya Bhutani
Shriya is a first-year M.A. student in the General Psychology program at New York University. She earned her B.A. in Psychological Sciences with a minor in Health Informatics from the University of California, Irvine. Her past research has focused on social psychology, particularly political biases and motivations. She is also interested in clinical psychology and its intersections with social processes. Under the mentorship of Dr. Birte Thissen, she is currently working on research examining flow states.
Wendi Li
Wendi is a first-year master’s student in Applied Psychology. She received her bachelor’s degree with honors in Biopsychology, Cognition, and Neuroscience (BCN) from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her research interests focus on the impact of positive and negative fantasies on short- and long-term development. In collaboration with Yingfan Zhang, she is currently conducting her master’s research and thesis on the positive fantasies about the future, focusing on the possibilities and variability that positive fantasies can bring.
