About Me

Professional Bio

My research examines whether and how science self-corrects, focusing on psychology. I study the research methods and practices used in psychology, as well as structural systems in science, such as peer review. I also examine whether people know themselves, and where our blind spots are in our self-knowledge. I teach research methods.

I am editor in chief of Collabra: Psychology, one of the PIs on the repliCATS project, and the co-founder (with Brian Nosek) of the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science.

CV [pdf]
Popular media articles
Videos of talks & lectures
Google Scholar Profile
[Blog] Sometimes I'm Wrong
[Podcast] The Black Goat (with Alexa Tullett & Sanjay Srivastava)
Contact: my email address is my first name at gmail dot com

Personal Bio

I live part time in Melbourne, and part time in Sydney with my partner Alex Holcombe and his kids.

My parents are French and Iranian. I was born in 1980 in France, grew up mostly in California, then lived in Minnesota, Austin, St. Louis, and back in California. Now, because of this tweet, I live and work in Australia. Be careful what you tweet.

My hobbies include tweeting, watching TV, traveling, sitting in cafes, petting dogs and other animals, reading, bushwalking (i.e., hiking), paddleboarding, and reading & critiquing other people's papers (sometimes for my job).

You can find some pictures of my previous dog, Bear, here and here.

Research Group

We are social & personality psychologists studying social & personality psychologists and other people.

Metascience

The metascience part of our work examines practices and norms in psychology (and beyond), including what research methods are commonly used, how to evaluate the quality of research in psychology, and how to improve peer review.

Social & Personality Psychology

We also examine how well people know themselves. Are we aware of our own behaviour and of how others see us? Do others sometimes know us better than we know ourselves? Where are the blind spots in our self-knowledge?

Sometimes, we combine these two lines of research and examine how scientists perceive themselves, how they behave, and how they are perceived by others.

University of Melbourne & UC Davis

Sarah Schiavone

Sarah is a PhD student in psychology at UC Davis, an NSF Graduate Research Fellow, and a member of the MetaMelb research group at the University of Melbourne. She received a B.S. from the University of North Alabama and an M.S. in Experimental Psychology from the University of Kentucky. Her research explores perceptions of scientists and scientific practices, evaluations of research quality (within and outside of traditional peer review), and changes in the characteristics and credibility of research published in social and personality psychology over time. Sarah is also interested in the development of tools and guidelines to improve the peer review process and to aid researchers in identifying threats to the validity of psychological research

Website
Google Scholar Profile

Julia Bottesini

Julia is a PhD candidate at the Psychology Department at the University of California, Davis. Her current projects examine how less high-profile research stakeholders, like study participants and science journalists, think about scientists’ research practices; how scientists communicate their findings to other scientists; and whether common model fit indices can still be trusted after data-driven model modifications have been made.

Website

Beth Clarke

Beth is a Psychology PhD student at the University of Melbourne. She is primarily interested in understanding how science generates and disseminates knowledge. Beth’s PhD draws on Metascience, Philosophy of Science, and adjacent fields to investigate these questions in the context of Social and Personality Psychology.

Linh Khong

Linh is a Graduate Diploma in Psychology (Advanced) student at the University of Melbourne. She has a Bachelor of Science with a major in Psychology. Her academic interests are social and cognitive psychology, and meta-science.

Katherine Lee

Katherine is a Graduate Diploma in Psychology (Advanced) student at the University of Melbourne. She completed her Bachelor of Arts in 2021, majoring in Psychology and Japanese Studies. She is looking forward to exploring replication studies in social and personality psychology in her research project this year.

Nick Moodie

Nick is a psychology honours student at the University of Melbourne. Having previously worked in law, he is fascinated by the interactions between institutional forces and individual decision-making. As a result he feels very much at home in a metascience lab and is keen to learn as much as possible.

Hugo

Hugo moved from Davis to Australia. He is still getting used to walking on the left side. He sticks his tongue out to the side when he is deliriously happy.

Research Assistants

We have a fantastic group of research assistants. We typically take a group photo every term, but have been unable to due to the pandemic. They are a vital part of our research group.