Professor of Psychology

Director of the Person and Context Laboratory

Vivian Zayas is a Professor of Psychology and Director of the Person and Context Laboratory at Cornell University. Her research focuses on the relational mind, exploring questions such as: How do we mentally represent and navigate the complexity of social life? Why do we “click” with some people but not with others? And how does the implicit mind shape how we perceive and respond to our social world—and, in turn, influence how others respond to us?

Her work takes an interdisciplinary approach, integrating insights from social, personality, developmental, and cognitive psychology, as well as social cognitive neuroscience. Her research has been published in leading journals, including Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Social Psychological and Personality Science, Psychological Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature Communications,Child Development, and Journal of Personality. It has also been featured in the popular press—such as The New York Times, Quartz, Newsweek, Discover Magazine, and Psychology Today—and on NPR’s Hidden Brain.

Her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. She was a Fellow at Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS, 2020–2021), and is a Fellow of both the Society of Experimental Social Psychology (elected in 2012) and the Association for Psychological Science (elected in 2022). She has edited two books, published 55 scholarly articles, and written nine popular press pieces.

Candidate Statement:

I’m honored to be considered for the University’s Senator-at-Large position. My connection to Cornell runs deep: I earned my B.A. in Psychology here in 1994 and played ultimate frisbee with the Cornell Wild Roses. Since returning in 2007 as a faculty member in Psychology, I’ve enjoyed collaborating across colleges through my interdisciplinary interests—as a fellow with the Center for Social Sciences (CCSS; formerly ISS), core faculty in the Cognitive Science Program, and through teaching students from a range of departments in my introductory course. I’m interested in serving as Senator-at-Large not only because of my strong ties to Cornell, but also because of the significant challenges currently facing the University and higher education more broadly. I look forward to finding ways to address the evolving political, economic, social, and environmental landscape. I’m also eager to learn more about faculty governance through the Senate and to explore ways to strengthen faculty engagement across campus.