Professor Abigail A. Baird

Abigail A. Baird, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Psychology at Vassar College and runs the site The Teen Species. Her research interests include the integration of emotion and cognition across development, with a particular focus on neural development during adolescence. She authored THINK Psychology.
 
Abigail earned her B.A. in biopsychology from Vassar College and her M.A. and Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Harvard University. She was awarded a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, at Dartmouth College. Her numerous articles and presentations have covered topics such as adolescent brain development, cognitive regulation of emotion, juvenile justice, and manifestations of racial bias in mind brain and behavior.
 
She is currently working on a series of studies that examine how teenagers use emotional and cognitive information to inform their decision-making. Her other interests include neuroimaging, as well as the influence of psychological science on law and public policy.
 
Abigail’s research has received awards from Harvard University, the Society for Research on Psychopathology, and in 2008 the Association for Psychological Science named Abigail a “Rising Star in Psychological Science”. Her research has also led her to be elected to several scientific societies including the International Society for Behavioral Neuroscience and the Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research.
 
She has been repeatedly recognized for her excellence in teaching. In 2000 she received Harvard’s George Goethals Teaching Prize, and in 2004 was awarded the Class of 1962 Excellence in Teaching Fellowship by Dartmouth College. Her professional accomplishments also include serving as secretary of the Association for Psychological Science, Honorary Faculty Member for the Order of Omega National Honor Society, Invited Faculty to the New York State Judicial Institute, and Advisory Board member on the Campaign for Youth Justice.
 
Abigail authored Sifting Myths for Truths About Our World, and coauthored Anatomical Changes in the Emerging Adult Brain: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study, Differential role of the orbital frontal lobe in emotional versus cognitive perspective-taking, Developmental precipitants of borderline personality disorder, Functional Connectivity: Integrating Behavioral, Diffusion Tensor Imaging, and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Data Sets, The emergence of consequential thought: evidence from neuroscience, and Functional Differences Among Those High and Low on a Trait Measure of Psychopathy.
 
Watch THINK Psychology Author Abby Baird. Read The Ig Nobel Prizes. View her Facebook page. Follow her Twitter feed.