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Amit Goldenberg

Amit Goldenberg, Lab Director

I am an associate professor at Harvard Business School, an affiliate with Harvard’s Department of Psychology,  and a member of the HBS AI Institute.

 

My research bridges two interconnected areas focused on enhancing flourishing within groups and communities, reducing unhelpful emotions, and improving well-being. One line of my work examines group behavior, with specific attention to emotions and affective processes in social contexts. Through this work, I study how dynamics such as contagion and network structure shape group functioning. Building on the need to find scalable solutions for changing emotions, a second focus explores technology, particularly AI-driven systems, and their role in eliciting emotions and providing emotional support. As AI tools are increasingly adopted to address the growing well-being crisis, they offer a promising large-scale solution for enhancing emotional health while also posing challenges for human social relations. To address these questions, I combine behavioral experiments with computational modeling, applying lab-based insights to real-world contexts.

I received my PhD in psychology from Stanford University. Before that, I worked as a journalist and a writer. In 2016, my first novel  ‘A City Forsaken’ (עיר הנידחת) was published in Israel (Keter Publishing House).

CV

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Federico Zimmerman, Postdoctoral fellow 

I am a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Lab within the Digital, Data, and Design Institute at Harvard Business School.

I am a computational social scientist who is interested in the psychological processes associated with social interactions. During my doctoral studies at the Universidad de Buenos Aires in Argentina, I conducted research using a combination of experimental and computational methods to investigate the underlying psychological mechanisms behind affective polarization and political segregation. 

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Ella Givon, Postdoctoral fellow 

I am a clinical psychologist and Postdoctoral Fellow at the lab, affiliated to Harvard's psychology department.


I obtained my BA, MA, and PhD degrees from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. In my research, I employ computational models to gain deeper insights into the conscious subjective emotional experience. During my doctoral studies, I focused on investigating the dissociation between semantic valence and actual experience, as well as empirically testing the concept of emotional errors. I am interested in how people know what they feel and specially in sex differences in emotional experiences.

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Sofie Labat, Postdoctoral fellow

I am a Postdoctoral Fellow. My research lies at the intersection of natural language processing (NLP), computational social science and psychology.

 

During my PhD, I investigated how people express emotions and affect in social interactions, and how machine learning can be used to automatically detect these signals. My broader research interests include topics such as emotion detection and progression in conversations, social biases in data and models, the linguistics expression of coping strategies and emotional support, and the integration of diverse perspectives into datasets and algorithms. I completed my PhD at Ghent University in Belgium, under the supervision of Véronique Hoste and Thomas Demeester. Prior to that, I earned a MA in Linguistics and Literature (English–French) and a MSc in Artificial Intelligence from KU Leuven.

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Yuning Liu, Postdoctoral fellow 

I am a PhD student in Population Health Science at Harvard University. I received a M.B.B.S in Medicine from Peking University and M.S. in Global Public Health from Harvard University. I study how to promote user well-being on digital platforms such as social media. My research examines the roles of user intentions, platform design, and creator-driven communication in shaping positive online experiences.

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Kati Kish Bar-On, Postdoctoral fellow

I am a philosopher of science and social science, working on the intersection of AI, cognitive science, and social behavior. Currently, I am also Alfred P. Sloan Meta-Science and AI postdoctoral fellow at Boston University (philosophy & computer science) and a lecturer at Northeastern University (political science). 

My work focuses on how behavior, cognition, and technology shape knowledge and reasoning in both social and scientific contexts. I examine how group dynamics, social norms, and social identities interact, bridging philosophy of psychology and behavioral science, and I extend this framework to the history and philosophy of mathematics, analyzing how social factors influence the creation of mathematical knowledge. I also explore how AI is reshaping social interactions and scientific practices, challenging traditional ideas of intuition, agency, and collaboration in an emerging human-machine epistemic culture.

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Yajun Cao, PHD Student 

I am a Ph.D. student in Organizational Behavior at Harvard Business School.

 

I received a B.S. in Psychology and B.B.A. from Peking University. My research interests revolve around emotions and social cognition. I am especially interested in how emotions and perceptions shape interpersonal interactions and their management applications.

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    Geshi Yeung, PHD Student 

    I am a Ph.D. student in Organizational Behavior at Harvard Business School. 

     

    I received a B.A. in Cognitive Science and Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania. My research involves exploring how social identity and network structure shape collective intelligence and emotions, as well as how to leverage psychological insights to improve human-AI collaboration. Before my Ph.D., I worked as a research coordinator at the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab. 

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      Yuanze Liu, PHD Student 

      I am a Ph.D. student in Organizational Behavior at Harvard Business School.

       

      My research examines collective psychology, with a particular focus on how groups coordinate. I study the psychological representations, social norms, and institutions that people develop as tools for coordination, as well as how coordination evolves through emotional dynamics, social learning, and network structure. I am also interested in the roles that large AI models may play in these processes.

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      Cat Huan, PHD Student 

      I am a Ph.D. student in Organizational Behavior at Harvard Business School. 

       

      I received my B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University, and Ed.M. from Harvard Graduate School of Education. My research interests revolve around relationships and social connection; I’m especially interested in relationship maintenance (how we manage conflict in relationships and teams) and relationship formation (how, when, and where do people meet and relationships form). 

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        Yaoxi Shi, Visiting PHD Student 

        I am a PhD student in Organizational Behavior at Imperial College London and a visiting scholar at Harvard University.

        My research focused on how people navigate social interactions and conversations. Using a combination of computational and experimental methods, I study how people decide who to talk to, what to say, and how what we say shapes how others perceive us, in both personal and workplace settings. I'm also deeply interested in how emerging technologies and emotions shape the way we interact with each other. I received an MA in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago and a BS in Psychology from Zhejiang University.

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        Noa Cohen Eick, Visiting PHD Student 

        I am a Ph.D. student under the supervision of Prof. Martijn van Zomeren (Groningen University) and Prof. Eran Halperin (Hebrew University), currently visiting Amit Goldenberg's lab at Harvard Business School. I hold a B.A. in Psychology and Counseling from the University of Haifa and a master's in Applied Neuropsychology from the Hebrew University.

         

        My research examines the psychological factors that influence participation in collective action for social change, with a particular focus on psychological momentum and its role in promoting long-term persistence. My interests also include civic engagement, the climate crisis, the collective action problem, and promoting sustainable behavior.

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        Matan Eshed, Research Assistant

        I am a licensed clinical psychologist and research assistant in Amit's lab, currently preparing to apply to PhD programs. I also volunteer as a research assistant in Dr. Richard McNally’s lab in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University.

         

        My research takes an interdisciplinary approach, integrating clinical psychology with philosophy, computer science, and technology. I am particularly interested in the intersection of psychotherapy and technology, with a current focus on factors influencing psychological flexibility, explored through the use of social robots, computational tasks, and AI. I’m also intrigued by questions surrounding our ability to reconstruct fundamental psychological assumptions—such as those related to the mind-body connection, our sense of reality, and the degree of freedom we perceive.

        I hold a BA in Psychology and Philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an MA in Clinical Psychology from Ruppin Academic Center. 

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        Affiliates

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        Lucia Freira

        I am an Economist, a United Nations Behavioural Science former Fellow, and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Neuroscience Lab at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos Aires.

         

        I am currently working with Amit Goldenberg and Joaquín Navajas, studying how people collectively use emotional regulation techniques, such as reappraisal. I am also interested in issues related to polarization, crime, and family violence, with a focus on its consequences for child development.  

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        Alumni

        Honglin Bao (University of Chicago) - Greg Depow (Lakehead Univesity) -  Ari Dyckovsky -

        Alina Herderich (Graz)  - Zi Huang - Yael Millgram (Tel Aviv University) - Matthew Nemesure - Michael Pinus - Jonas Schone (University of Southampton) - Eric Shuman (University of Virginia) -

        Dan Vandermeule - Ke Wang ​

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