Lab News
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2026
October
- Gabriella Harari gave a talk on "Identity Development in the Digital Context” for the Children and Screens #AsktheExperts webinar series on “Who is the ‘Real Me’? How Online Life Influences Youth Identity Development.” Watch it here!
September
- Gabriella Harari and Noah Vinoya are co-organizing the Psychology of Media & Technology Preconference with Cameron Bunker and Sumer Vaid at the 2027 SPSP Conference in Philadelphia, PA.
- Gabriella Harari and Frankie Zhong are co-chairing a symposium titled, "Psychology in Context: Person-Environment Dynamics Within Physical and Social Environments," which was accepted at the 2027 SPSP Conference in Philadelphia, PA.
August
- Our paper, Too Much, Too Little, or Just Right? The Role of Identity and Motivations in Perceptions of Social Media Use, is accepted for publication at Communication Research.
- Our paper, Change in Adaptive Identity Processes and Well-Being Supported by Self-Reflection and AI-Mediated Reflection in Digital Intervention, is accepted for publication at Technology, Mind, and Behavior.
- Gabriella Harari co-authored a paper with colleagues led by Timo Koch, Brief Speech Samples Reveal Emotional States in Daily Life, which was published at PNAS Nexus.
July
- Gabriella Harari and Clemens Stachl co-chaired an invited symposium, "Beyond Big Five: New Approaches to the Study of Individual Differences in the Wild," at European Conference on Personality in Edinburgh, Scotland.
- Gabriella Harari gave a talk, "Contextualizing Sensed Smartphone Use and Well-Being in Everyday Life," at the European Conference on Personality in Edinburgh, Scotland.
June
- Serena started a program manager position at OpenAI. Congratulations, Serena!
May
- Serena Soh defended her dissertation, titled "Supporting Adaptive Identity Development Among Emerging Adults in the Age of Social Media and AI." Congratulations, Dr. Soh!
- Gabriella Harari was an invited speaker and panelist at the Mobile Methods Mini Conference at Ohio State University, Columbus, OH.
April
- Awarded Top Read Article and Top Cited Article certificates from Social and Personality Psychology Compass for our 2024 paper on Identity Development in the Digital Context.
March
- Our paper on The Impact of Stress on Personality State Expressions was published in Communications Psychology.
February
- Gabriella Harari gave an invited talk, "New Frontiers in Understanding Media Behavior and Person-Environment Dynamics" at the Personality Science Preconference at the SPSP annual conference, Chicago, IL.
- Gabriella Harari co-organized the Psychology of Media & Technology Preconference with Joseph Bayer, Sumer Vaid, and Heinrich Peters at SPSP in Chicago, IL.
- Gabriella Harari co-authored a paper with colleagues led by Aurelio Fernandez, The Right Fit: When Socially Anxious Individuals Gain the Most From Social Interactions, which was published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.
2025
December
- Gabriella Harari gave a colloquium talk in the Department of Psychology's Cognitive Area, UC Santa Cruz.
November
- Gabriella Harari (PI) received a $20,000 Stanford HAI Google Cloud Credit Award for "SABLE: Sensor-Based Assessment of Behavioral Lifestyles and Experiences."
October
- Our paper on Bridging the Gap: Enhancing Empathy Perceptions Fosters Social Connection was published in Nature Human Behavior.
September
- Frankie Zhong joined the lab as a Ph.D. student. Welcome, Frankie!
August
- Subigya Nepal has started a position as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Virginia. Congratulations, Subigya!
June
- Gabriella Harari spoke on a panel with Morgan Ross and Mariek Vanden Abeele about "Common Sensing? Standardizing Context Sensing in Mobile Communication," at ICA in Denver, CO.
- Gabriella Harari gave a talk titled, "Contact with Physical Nature, Not Technological Nature via Smartphones, Is Related to Positive Affective Wellbeing in Everyday Life," at ICA in Denver, CO.
- Mahnaz Roshanaei gave a talk titled, "Interaction Partners and Empathy in the Selection of Communication Channels During Meaningful Social Interactions," at ICA in Denver, CO.
May
- Our paper Lifestyle Polarization on a College Campus: Do Liberals and Conservatives Behave Differently in Daily Life? was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
- Gabriella Harari gave a talk titled, "Sensing Smartphone Use in Context: Effects on Social and Affective Well-Being," at the Communication Horizons Conference, Davis, CA.
- Serena Soh gave a talk titled, "The Role of Identity Processes and Motivations in Perceptions of Social Media Use," at the Communication Horizons Conference, Davis, CA.
- Mahnaz Roshanaei gave a talk titled, "Communication Channels and Relationship Maintenance: Exploring Media Multiplexity Theory Among Peers in College," at the Communication Horizons Conference, Davis, CA.
April
- Our paper on Physical and Technological Nature Contact and Affective Wellbeing in Everyday Life was published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology.
March
- Gabriella Harari gave a colloquium talk in the Department of Communication, UC Davis.
- Katherine Roehrick defended her dissertation, titled ""The Relationship Between Smartphone Use and Well-Being: The Role of Situational Context." Congratulations, Dr. Roehrick!
February
- Gabriella Harari co-authored a paper with colleagues led by Anna Schnauber-Stockmann, The Situation in Media and Communication Research, which was published in Communication Theory.
- Gabriella Harari co-organized the Psychology of Media & Technology Preconference with Sumer Vaid, Heinrich Peters, and Joseph Bayer at SPSP in Denver, CO.
- Noah Vinoya presented a poster titled, "Identity Processes and Motivations for Social Media Use," at SPSP in Denver, CO.
- Sumer Vaid and Gabriella Harari published a chapter with Sandra Matz, titled "Personalized Persuasion in Digital Media," in The Handbook of Personalized Persuasion: Theory and Application.
January
- Maximilian Bergmann joined the lab as a visiting student researcher. Welcome, Max!
- Jan Digutsch joined the lab as a visiting post-doctoral fellow. Welcome, Jan!
2024
October
- Our paper A Digital Identity Intervention Incorporating Social Media Activities Promotes Identity Exploration and Commitment Among Emerging Adults was published in Identity.
- Awarded the UbiComp 10 Year Impact Award for the 2014 StudentLife paper. Congratulations, Rui and team!
September
- Subigya Nepal joined the lab as an HAI Postdoctoral Fellow. Welcome, Subigya!
July
- Our paper on Social Media Use Is Predictable from App Sequences was published in Computers in Human Behavior.
- Mahnaz Roshanaei presented a poster titled, “Social Interactions in the Era of Multiple Channels: a Media Richness Perspective” at the annual meeting of IC2S2 in Philadelphia, PA.
June
- Our paper on Meaningful Peer Social Interactions and Momentary Well-Being in Context was published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.
March
- Our paper on Variation in Social Media Sensitivity Across People and Contexts was published in Scientific Reports.
February
- Our paper on Identity development in the digital context was published in Social and Personality Psychology Compass.
- Gabriella Harari and Sumer Vaid co-organized the Psychology of Media and Technology Preconference with Heinrich Peters and Joseph Bayer at SPSP in San Diego, CA.
- Gabriella Harari and Sumer Vaid co-chaired a symposium, "Understanding Behavior, Situations, and Individual Differences with Mobile Sensing Methods," at SPSP in San Diego, CA.
- Noah Vinoya presented a poster titled, “Exploring Social Media Motivations in Emerging Adults: Gender, Ethnic Identity, and Identity Distress," at the SPSP Psychology of Media and Technology Preconference in San Diego, CA.
- Serena Soh presented a poster titled, “Leveraging Digital Media to Promote Identity Exploration: An Intervention Study," at the SPSP Self and Identity Preconference in San Diego, CA.
- Mahnaz Roshanaei presented a poster titled, “Energy intensive social Interaction and subsequent wellbeing in Young Adults,” at the annual meeting of SPSP in San Diego, CA.
- Our lab hosted a Mobile Sensing Workshop to bring scholars together at Stanford’s Institute for Research in the Social Sciences.
January
- Sumer Vaid has started a position as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Business School. Congratulations, Sumer!
- Mahnaz Roshanaei has been hired as a part-time lecturer at UCSC. Congratulations, Mahnaz!
2023
December
- Sumer Vaid defended his dissertation, titled “Social Media Sensitivity: Probing Heterogeneity Across People, Places, Platforms, Types of Use and Time,” Congratulations, Dr. Vaid!
- Our paper on Understanding Behaviors in Context Using Mobile Sensing was published in Nature Reviews Psychology.
September
- Chiara Foerster joined the lab as a visiting student researcher! Welcome, Chiara!
- Heinrich Peters joined the lab as a visiting student researcher! Welcome, Heinrich!
- Noah Vinoya joined the lab as a Ph.D. student! Welcome, Noah!
July
- Our paper on Who Benefits from Which Activity? The Relations Between Personality Traits, Leisure Activities, and Well-Being was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
June
- Jada Hallman has graduated and completed her master's thesis, titled "Differential COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts on Community College and University Student Experiences." Congratulations, Jada!
May
- Gabriella Harari spoke about personality states with Kai Horstmann, Whitney Ringwald, and René Mõttus for an episode of the Personality Psychology Podcast.
- Serena Soh presented a poster titled, "Social Media Use Motivations Among Emerging Adults," at the annual meeting of ICA in Toronto, Canada. She received second place for the ICA Communication and Technology Division Poster Award. Congratulations, Serena!
- Mahnaz Roshanaei gave a talk on “Contextualizing Meaningful Social Interactions and Psychological Wellbeing in Everyday Life” at ICA in Toronto, Canada. She received the ICA Interpersonal Communication Division’s Top Student Paper Award. Congratulations, Mahnaz!
March
- Mathew Kiang (PI), Gabriella Harari (Co-I), & Johannes Eichstaedt (Co-I) received a $75,000 seed award from Stanford HAI for “Leveraging Smartphone Data Collection to Improve Data Quality and Sample Generalizability in Epidemiologic Studies.”
February
- Gabriella Harari and Sumer Vaid co-organized the Psychology of Media and Technology Preconference with Heinrich Peters and Joseph Bayer at SPSP in Atlanta, GA.
- Sumer Vaid and Gabriella Harari co-chaired a symposium at SPSP titled “Contextualizing Psychological States and Digital Media Behaviors in Everyday Life.”
- Serena Soh presented two posters titled, “The Bidirectional Relationship Between Smartphone Use and Well-being in Everyday” and "Identity Development and Social Media Use Motivation Among Emerging Adults" at SPSP in Atlanta, GA.
- Sumer Vaid gave a talk on our work “ Social Media Sensitivity Across People, Places and Platforms” at SPSP in Atlanta, GA.
January
- Sumer Vaid received a Graduate Research Assistantship at the Stanford Internet Observatory. Congratulations, Sumer!
- Our paper on Well-Being in Social Interactions: Examining Personality-Situation Dynamics in Face-to-Face and Computer-Mediated Communication was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
2022
October
- Our paper on Evaluating Voice Samples as a Potential Source of Information About Personality was published in Acta Psychologica.
September
- Eleni Stogianni joined the lab as our Lab Manager. Welcome, Eleni!
- Diana Jordan started as a Ph.D. student in Political Science at Duke University! Congratulations, Diana!
- Sanaz Talaifar accepted a position as an Assistant Professor at Imperial College London, United Kingdom! Congratulations, Prof. Talaifar!
- Timo Koch joined the lab as a visiting student researcher! Welcome, Timo!
- Jada Hallman and Sarah Edwards Lehman joined the lab as Research Assistants. Welcome, Jada and Sarah!
June
- Our paper on Investigating the Within-Person Structure and Correlates of Emotional Experiences in Everyday Life Using an Emotion Family Approach was published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
May
- Gabriella Harari and Sumer Vaid co-organized a panel for the Communication & Technology Division at ICA in Paris on “Digital Media and Wellbeing: Unpacking The Heterogeneity of Users, Uses and Effects.”
- Sumer Vaid gave a talk on “Social Media Sensitivity Across People and Places” and presented an Extended Abstract on “It's Time To Personalize Media Psychology: Moving from Nomothetic to Idiographic Research” at ICA in Paris, France.
- Sumer Vaid gave a talk on “Social Media Sensitivity Across People and Places” at the Institute of Psychological Methods and Diagnostic at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
- Serena Soh presented a poster at the annual meeting of ICA in Paris titled, "Daily Smartphone Use and Well-being During COVID-19: The Moderating Role of Self-Perceived Compulsive Use."
April
- Our paper on Using GPS Data for Psychological Research: A Tutorial was published in Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science.
February
- Sumer Vaid presented a Data Blitz on “Person-Specific Effects of Social Media Use on Wellbeing” at SPSP for the Psychology of Media and Technology Preconference in San Francisco, CA.
- Eleni Stogianni presented a poster at the SPSP Psychology of Media and Technology Preconference titled, "Meditation Apps and Psychological Well-Being: Perspectives, Considerations & Future Directions."
- Serena Soh presented a poster at the SPSP Psychology of Media and Technology Preconference titled, "Daily Smartphone Use and Well-being During COVID-19."
- Gabriella Harari gave a talk on "Using GPS Data to Understand the Relationship Between Mobility Behavior and Well-Being” for the Institute of Navigation's webinar series. Check it out here!
Gabriella Harari and other lab members joined a multi-institution project examining how individuals are coping with COVID-19. Please see the news article here for more about the project.
2021
November
- Gabriella Harari (PI), Chris Tomsen (Co-I), and Carolyn Ibarra (Co-I) received a $40,000 award from the Stanford University Office of Community Engagement (OCE) for “Social Science Research Assistant Internship Program for Community College Students.”
September
- Serena Soh joined the lab as a PhD student! Welcome, Serena!
- Gabriella Harari co-organized an expert virtual meeting with Joanne Chung and Kai Horstmann for the European Association for Personality Psychology on “The Conceptualization and Measurement of Personality States.”
August
- Clemens Stachl started a position as an Associate Professor of Behavioral Science at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland! Congratulations Prof. Stachl!
July
- Our paper on Computational Personality Assessment was published in Personality Science.
June
- Our paper on Multi-modal data collection for measuring health, behavior, and living environment of large-scale participant cohorts was published in GigaScience.
May
- Our paper on Personality-Place Transactions was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
- Gabriella Harari and Sumer Vaid received a $98,000 Google Cloud Credit award from Stanford HAI for “SABLE: Sensor-based Assessment of Behavioral Lifestyles and Experiences.”
April
- Our paper on Improving Prediction of Real-Time Loneliness and Companionship was published in SmartHealth.
- Our paper Who Uses What and How Often? was published in the Journal of Research in Personality.
- Mahnaz Roshanaei received a lecturer position at California State University, East Bay to teach about Human-Computer Interaction beginning in Spring 2022. Congratulations, Dr. Roshanaei!
- Diana Jordan joined the lab as a Research Assistant! Welcome, Diana!
February
- Serena Soh presented virtually at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology on our work, titled “Smartphone Use and Feelings of Contentment and Connectedness During the COVID-19 Pandemic.”
2020
November
- Our paper on Investigating the Relationships Between Mobility Behaviors Indicators of Subjective Well-Being was published in the European Journal of Personality.
September
- Our paper on Personality Sensing for Theory Development and Assessment was published in the European Journal of Personality.
- Gabriella Harari gave a keynote talk titled “Personality Sensing: A New Frontier for Personality Research in the Digital Age" at SPSP’s Personality Dynamics and Processes Pre-Conference in New Orleans, LA.
July
- Our paper on Sensing Sociability was published at the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
June
- Our paper on Predicting Personality from patterns of behavior collect with smartphones was published in the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
May
- Our paper on Personality Research and Assessment in the Era of Machine Learning was published in the European Journal of Personality.
March
- Gabriella Harari (PI), Jamil Zaki (Co-I), & Mahnaz Roshanaei (Co-I) receive a $75,000 seed grant from Stanford University Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) for “Understanding the Changing Landscape of Social Life and its Effects on the Well-Being of Stanford’s Student Communities.”
February
- Our paper on A Process-Oriented Approach to Respecting Privacy was published in Current Opinion in Psychology.
- Gabriella Harari gave a talk titled “Sensing the Behavioral Manifestation of Personality in Daily Life" at the Human-Computer Interaction seminar on “People, Computers and Design” at the Department of Computer Science, Stanford University.
- Gabriella Harari gave a talk titled “Sensing the Behavioral Manifestation of Personality in Daily Life" at the Institute for Personality and Social Research at the Department of Psychology, University of California at Berkeley.
2019
September
- Our paper on Personality Trait Predictors and Well-Being Correlates of Exercise was published in Social Science & Medicine.
- Clemens Stachl joined the lab as a Postdoctoral Fellow. Welcome, Clemens!
- Chawannuch (Friend) Chaikulngamdee joined the lab as our new Lab Manager. Welcome, Chawannuch!
- Serena Soh joined the lab as a Research Assistant. Welcome, Serena!
February
- Gabriella Harari co-chaired a symposium with Sandrine Müller on New Frontiers in Examining Person-Environment Interactions at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Portland, OR.
August
- Gabriella Harari gave an invited keynote talk on "Mobile Sensing for Theory Development and Assessment in Social and Personality Psychology" at SPSP’s Summer Psychology Forum on Big Data.
May
- Gabriella Harari was invited to speak on symposium at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science on “Sensing individual differences in everyday social behavior” in Washington, DC.
April
- Gabriella Harari gave a talk on “Sensed Sociability Behaviors and Their Relationship to Personality Traits and Subjective Well-Being” at the Social & Personality Psychology Colloquium of the Department of Psychology, UC Davis.
2018
September
- Our paper on Sensing Behavioral Change Over Time was published in the Journal of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies journal series.
- Sumer Vaid joined the lab as a PhD student. Welcome, Sumer!
June
- Our work on Naturalistic Assessment of Situations Using Mobile Sensing Methods was published in the Oxford Handbook of Psychological Situations.
July
- Gabriella Harari gave a talk on “Individual differences in daily socializing behaviors captured using smartphones” at the European Conference on Personality, Zadar, Croatia.
- Gabriella Harari gave an invited talk on “Self-Tracking Using Smartphones to Assess Behavior and Promote Self-Insight” at the Department of Psychology’s Institute of Psychological Methods and Diagnostics, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
- Gabriella Harari gave a talk on Using Smartphones to Collect Behavioral Data in Psychological Science at the Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh.
May
- Gabriella Harari presented a paper on "Individual Differences in Daily Socializing Behaviors Captured Using Smartphones" at ICA, Prague, Czech Republic.
February
- Gabriella Harari co-organized the Psychology of Media & Technology Preconference with Kostadin Kushlev and Bradley Okdie at SPSP, Atlanta, GA.
- Gabriella Harari gave an invited talk on Using Smartphones to Understand Well-Being in Daily Life at the Happiness and Well-Being Preconference of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Annual Convention, Atlanta, Georgia.
2017
December
- Our paper on Smartphone Sensing Methods for Studying Behavior in Everyday Life was published in the journal of Current Opinion in Behavioral Science.
September
- Our poster on Understanding the Role of Places and Activities on Mobile Phone Interaction and Usage Patterns was published at the journal of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies.
- Our poster on Participants’ Compliance and Experiences with Self-Tracking Using a Smartphone Sensing App was published at the journal of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies.
July
- Our paper on Using smartphone to assess mental health and academic performance of college students was published as a chapter in Mobile Health.
- Our paper on Students’ Interest in and Compliance with Self-Tracking Methods was published at the journal of Social Psychological and Personality Science.
- We founded the Stanford Media and Personality Lab.