Research Site Close-up:
Tripoli, Tyre, Chouf Mountains, Jounie and Keserwan, Koura, and Beirut, LEBANON
Cultural-religious groups include Maronite Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Protestants, Shia Muslims, and Sunni Muslims living throughout Lebanon, as well as members of the Druze faith living in and around the Chouf Mountains, Lebanon
PIs: Tamer Amin (PI) • Maliki E. Ghossainy (Co-PI)
SINGAPORE
PI: Kushnir
Tamer Amin (PI) earned his MA and PhD in developmental psychology from Clark University, USA. He is currently Associate Professor at the Department of Education and member of the Science and Mathematics Education Center at the American University of Beirut (AUB), Lebanon. His research focuses on conceptual change in science learning. He has a particular interest in integrating ideas from a number of different disciplinary perspectives on conceptual change, as reflected in his co-edited book (with Olivia Levrini) Converging Perspectives on Conceptual Change: Mapping an Emerging Paradigm in the Learning Sciences (Routledge, 2018). In a parallel line of research, he is investigating the challenges of teaching and learning science in the multilingual contexts of the Arab world and how these challenges might be overcome.
Maliki E. Ghossainy (Co-PI) completed her PhD in developmental psychology and her MS in statistics from The University of Texas at Austin in 2016. She studies the ways that children demonstrate early signs of epistemic vigilance, that is, the ability to selectively prefer some informants as good sources and judiciously avoid some informants as bad sources. Her research is particularly focused on the ways in which children rely on nonverbal or implicit cues to infer credibility. She has found evidence of a dramatic change between ages 5 and 6 in children’s use of nonverbal leakage to infer that a speaker may be lying and is currently investigating the underlying mechanisms that may explain these findings. She is also currently studying the role of linguistic behaviors on the epistemic judgements of bilingual children in Lebanon and the USA. In addition to serving as co-PI for this research team, she is the Senior Research Scientist for the Developing Belief Network, and is currently based at Boston University.
Team Members
Ghadir Soueidan earned her BA in translation and interpretation from the Lebanese International University and her MA in computational linguistics from the Lebanese University. She is currently a member of the DBN-Lebanon team. Her research interests focus on bilingual/multilingual practices and second language acquisition in Lebanon. She is also interested in the effect of these practices on language preferences and language use.
Jana Chokor holds a BA in psychology from the American University of Beirut. She has experience working on the Lebanese suicide hotline. She is currently a mental health case officer in the Lebanese National Mental Health Program in the Ministry of Public Health. She is also a WHO Quality Rights assessor of inpatient and outpatient mental health services. Besides her clinical experience, Jana is interested in cognitive psychology. She has been a research assistant on the DBN-Lebanon team since March 2022.
Julia Ganama earned her BA in psychology, with a minor in philosophy, in 2019 from the Lebanese American University. She has worked on a variety of research projects in both local non-governmental organizations and academic settings. Her research interests include understanding the effects of our cognitive processes on our perceptions of, and interactions with, the world. She is currently working on reviewing and indigenizing psychology in the Arab world, promoting relevant and open psychology resources for individuals in the Arab world, as well as working as a research assistant on the DBN-Lebanon team.
Stephanie Farah earned her MA in psychology from Boston University. Alongside her work as a research assistant with the DBN-Lebanon team, she is currently a part-time instructor of psychology at the Lebanese American University. She is interested in cultural influences on caregiving and the relationships between childhood adversity, stress regulation, and health and relational outcomes.
Images of Lebanon, a research site for this sub-grant.
