Meet the Team Behind Marginalia Science

Dec 21, 2023 BY Fahima Mohideen

A few years ago, I was introduced to Marginalia Science when I read their commentary in Nature about how social science research has marginalized some ideas that are vital to scientific and societal progress. When researchers pursue "non-mainstream" topics like indigenous rights or political violence (to name a few), or work with populations that are non-White or from the Global South (in addition to other marginalized or disadvantaged communities), they are often relegated to the margins of our science by funneling them into specialty journals and receiving less funding compared to more "basic science". In an effort to build community for scholars who do this work and who themselves might belong to marginalized identities, Pia Dietze, Ana Gantman, Hannah Nam, and Laura Niemi came together in 2016 to form Marginalia Science, which works to promote and highlight work this is not traditionally promoted by the academic status quo. The group has since grown to a community of several hundreds, with a new leadership team at the helm. This month, I spoke with Ivy Gilbert, Eliana Hadjiandreou, Minjae Kim, and Jordan Wylie about their own research, their work with Marginalia, and what they have planned next for the group. Check out the interview below!

Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and your journey here? Anything goes—from your research and career interests, to what brings you joy!

Jordan: I am currently an NSF SBE postdoc at Boston College, working in Dr. Liane Young and Dr. Gregg Sparkman's labs. My work broadly focuses on how emotions and morality influence how we navigate our everyday lives. I'm fascinated by everyday moral decisions (e.g., should I jaywalk or not?) and the ways that morality shapes and constrains how we understand the world around us, including who and what we are curious to learn about. In my spare time, I like to watch TV and film (especially horror), and play tennis. I also recently got a puppy, which has brought a source of joy to my life that has far exceeded my expectations.

Minjae: I recently started a postdoc with Dr. Shari Liu in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. I received my PhD from Boston College, where I was advised by Dr. Young. I'm broadly interested in how we infer and represent the causes behind people's behaviors, and I'm excited to investigate how brain regions for social reasoning and physical reasoning contribute to these processes. I like to find the NYT Spelling Bee pangram as fast as I can, try out new restaurants, and scroll through Letterboxd reviews as soon as I leave the theater.

Ivy: I'm a PhD student in the Department of Psychology at Cornell University, working with Dr. Laura Niemi. I hold an MA in linguistics from Florida Atlantic University, where I mostly studied cognitive linguistics and discourse analysis. I also spent some time interning and working with animal protection organizations before starting my PhD. Now I broadly study moral psychology, and I'm primarily interested in understanding moral decision-making in the realm of consumer behavior, consumer perceptions of animal agriculture, and ultimately how to promote total animal liberation. I love cooking, learning about the French Revolution, reading fiction (especially Nabokov), and taking my rat terrier to the dog park.

Eliana: I am finishing my PhD at the Empathy and Moral Psychology lab at Penn State University, and starting a post-doc at the Computational Affective and Social Cognition Lab (CASCogLab) at the University of Texas at Austin. I consider myself a moral psychologist, broadly interested in altruism, empathy, and prosocial behavior, and specifically studying how we think about, are surprised by, and sometimes (negatively) judge the kindness of others. I enjoy psychological thrillers, trolley dilemma memes, watching videos of dogs reuniting with their owners, and scouting for new vegan restaurants.

How did you get involved with Marginalia Science? What does this work that you're doing as a group mean to you?

Jordan: My grad school advisor, Dr. Ana Gantman is one of the four founding members. The other founding members include Dr. Pia Dietze, Dr. Hannah Nam, and Dr. Laura Niemi. They really built the foundation of the group and have now passed it down to the next generation of early career researchers who are passionate about these issues. Marginalia Science is really important to me—it was a space where I felt belonging and comfortable as a grad student attending SPSP. And so I'm really hoping we can continue that legacy and pay it forward—to play this same role for researchers looking for community, while helping build the platform and reach.

Minjae: Jordan was my entry point to the community! Over the years, I've grown to appreciate spaces where a diversity of backgrounds and experiences are valued, and the power of highlighting and citing underrecognized scientists. I'm thankful I get to work with the rest of the leadership team to help promote the work of scholars from underrepresented groups, and identify ways to grow our community.

Ivy: Like Jordan, my PhD advisor, Laura Niemi, is one of the original founding members. I'm really honored to be part of Marginalia's new leadership team. I'm a first-generation student and would have benefited so much from a community like Marginalia when I was floundering as an undergrad and feeling my way somewhat blindly through my MA. A community that celebrates scholarship from diverse and nontraditional backgrounds and helps people grow and connect with one another is really important to me, and I'm excited to be part of it.

Eliana: Like Minjae, I got introduced to Marginalia through Jordan, although I had heard of the initiative in the past through SPSP. Following the launch of a very successful international moral psychology network group that Meltem Yucel and Jim Everett initiated (and later joined by Cillian McHugh), I was encouraged to see moral psychology move beyond the "philosophy bro" stereotype that was permeating the field for some time. I'm seeing Marginalia as an extension broadening out beyond moral psychology, to include underrepresented scholars from all sub-fields of psychology.

What do you hope to accomplish with Marginalia in the next few years?

Our main goal is to grow the reach of the group. We were thinking about this in a couple of ways. First by growing our social media presence, but the decline of Twitter/X has put a damper on that plan. We are now rebuilding on Bluesky (follow us!!). And second, by continuing to grow our newsletter. Switching to Substack has made tracking this easier, and we can see that we are slowly but surely gaining more and more subscribers every month. We have over 350 subscribers at the moment.

Can you tell me a little about ongoing initiatives at Marginalia Science? How can people who are interested get involved?

Our primary initiative is our monthly newsletter. Each month, we have a guest feature who shares a little about themselves and their work with the community. We keep things fairly casual (and, if you follow our newsletter you'll also know that we love our emojis!). We make sure to showcase the featured guests' selected articles of interest - both authored by them and also favorite reads. We also solicit updates on new work by members of the group and gather current funding and job opportunities, calls for papers and conferences, relevant popular press articles to include in the newsletter.

We also have a special set up with the Stanford Psychology Podcast (check out our first featured episode in the links below). When our guest feature is an early career Assistant Professor, they also have the opportunity to share their work on the podcast. This is just another way we have been thinking about growing the reach of the group, and further promoting the work of the scientists in our community.

If you want to be featured in Marginalia, or have suggestions for people who want to be featured, relevant articles on representation, or any other cool leads we should include in our monthly feature, please get in touch with us via email!

How has the Marginalia community grown since it was first formed in 2016? Do you have any community building events planned in the coming months?

Since Marginalia Science was established in 2016, our digital following has more than tripled, which has been wonderful to see; in recent years we have had the privilege of hosting in-person meetups at the annual SPSP convention, where we aim to provide a supportive space for strengthening our network. This year, Marginalia Science hosted its very first community symposium at Boston College, featuring talks from three early career researchers that were broadcast live to the greater academic community; we hope to continue to invite scholars to share their work to a wide audience.

We are also excited to share that we will be hosting a meet up at SPSP 2024, thanks to a Community Catalyst Grant! We'll get together Thursday night at 8 PM for a friendly, informal gathering near the convention center, with free food and non-alcoholic beverages. You can RSVP for the event here.

Learn more about Marginalia Science and join the community: