Stanford Psychology Podcast

This week, Katia has a conversation with Bill Burnett, an adjunct professor at Stanford University. He is the co-founder of Stanford's Life Design Lab and also the co-author of Designing Your Life and How to Live a Meaningful Life.  In this conversation, Bill shares how we can live in alignment with our values and compass, how prototyping can help us embrace uncertainty, and how to design a life that is more meaningful to us. 
Designing Your Life Website: https://designingyour.life/ 
Bill Burnett’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-burnett-4225401/  
Bill Burnett’s Books:
Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life
How to Live a Meaningful Life: Using Design Thinking to Unlock Purpose, Joy, and Flow Every Day
Katia’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiakriakova/  
Podcast Contact: stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com 
Podcast Twitter: @StanfordPsyPod
Podcast Substack: https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/

Adani chats with Nomisha Kurian, Assistant Professor in Education Studies at the University of Warwick, Associate Fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, and Associate at the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Research in Digital Education. Nomisha has been at the forefront of research on children’s safety and well-being, elucidating what it means for up-and-coming AI technologies to support children’s development and align with their best interests. She has also advised the UK Government Open Innovation Team, spearheaded policy briefs, and previously researched children’s rights law at Yale University. We discuss how a recently-viral NYT article relates to Nomisha’s frameworks for developmentally aligned AI, why we should have “critical hope” for the future, and learn more about the exciting things she’ll be releasing later this year!
NYT feature – “What Parents in China See in A.I. Toys”:  https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/asia/100000010595407/china-ai-toy-chatbot.html 
Nomisha’s framework on developmentally aligned AI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s44436-025-00009-z
Nomisha’s further work: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=wT89nlAAAAAJ
Nomisha’s children’s book: https://nosycrow.com/book/university-of-cambridge-think-big-artificial-intelligence/ 
Adani’s website: https://www.adaniabutto.com
Adani’s Bluesky @adani
Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod
Podcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/
Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

In this episode, Elizabeth chats with Dr. Andrew Lampinen as a part of our Alumni in Industry series. Andrew is currently a Member of Technical Staff at Anthropic. Prior to joining Anthropic, he worked as a Staff Research Scientist at Google DeepMind, and before that he earned his PhD here at Stanford and researched how humans are able to learn new things rapidly. His work bridges cognitive science and artificial intelligence, often with a focus on how the complex behaviors and representations of models, agents, or humans emerge from their learning experiences or data. In this episode, Dr. Lampinen shares his experiences in academia and industry and offers an insightful perspective on how these two research landscapes may be similar and different. 

Andrew's website: https://lampinen.github.io/

Elizabeth’s: website: imelizabeth.github.io
Elizabeth’s BlueSky: @imelizabeth.bsky.social

Podcast BlueSky @StanfordPsyPod.bsky.social
Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod
Podcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/

Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

Adani chats with Cynthia Osborne, Professor at Vanderbilt University and Executive Director of the Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center. Prof. Osborne’s work focuses on translating developmental science into effective, evidence-based policies for families and young children in the U.S. We discuss what the field of Early Childhood Policy entails, the ongoing work that Prof. Osborne and the Impact Center conduct, and why the first three years of childhood are so critical. Prof. Osborne also tells us about her path into her current work, how she built the Impact Center’s wonderful team, and what advice she would pass on to students seeking to bridge research and policy!
Cynthia Osborne’s page: https://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/bio/cynthia-osborne/
Cynthia Osborne’s publications: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=tRc8EmMAAAAJ
Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center: https://pn3policy.org/
Policy Impact Calculator: https://pn3policy.org/policy-impact-calculator/
Prenatal-to-3 State Policy Roadmap: https://pn3policy.org/pn-3-state-policy-roadmap-2025/ 
Adani’s website: https://stanford.edu/~aabutto/
Adani’s Bluesky @adani
Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod
Podcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/
Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

This week, Enna chats with Dr. Julia Nolte, Assistant Professor of Economic Psychology at Tilburg University. Julia’s research examines how information management, risk perception, and decision-making change across adulthood. She is particularly interested in what keeps people, especially older adults, from making well-informed and high-quality decisions, and how we can better support people in making choices that align with their goals and values.
In our conversation, Julia discusses how her early interest in theater sparked her interest in psychology, how she came to study aging and decision-making, and what her work can teach us about information avoidance, decision-making, and the very human challenge of choosing between imperfect options.

Julia’s Website: https://www.julianolte.org/ 
Julia’s X: @Dr_Julia_Nolte
Julia’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-nolte-8aa02b158/ 
Julia’s Paper: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0361073X.2025.2473849 

Enna’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ennayuxuanchen/ 
Enna’s X: @EnnaYuxuanChen

Podcast Contact: stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com 
Podcast Twitter: @StanfordPsyPod
Podcast Substack: https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/ 
Podcast Contact: stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com