Peggy Yin

Peggy Yin is a social psychology PhD student at Stanford University, advised by psychologists Carol Dweck and Hazel Markus and supported by the Knight-Hennessy Scholarship. Yin's research centers on designing and studying social and technical systems that enable transformative personal change. She combines methods from psychology, political economics, and human-computer interaction to study and design transformative experiences for individuals and social groups. Using experimental and computational methods, Yin works to study, build, and scale psychosocial systems for navigating transformative change.

Yin graduated Phi Beta Kappa and cum laude from Harvard University with a bachelor's degree in computational neuroscience and a minor in art history. Her interdisciplinary academic background, spanning neuroscience, art, and the social sciences, informs her research practice. Yin is a researcher, musician, and community builder exploring how neuroscience, technology, and the arts can inspire greater compassion and connection.

Yin directs the Cognitive Security Task Force, a student affinity group at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI focused on understanding the applied cognitive effects of emerging technologies. She also serves as a board member of LearnerStudio. Her research addresses questions about artificial intelligence and human identity, including collaborative work on AI-generated digital twins that simulate future selves, exploring the implications of users interacting with AI-generated future selves as a paradigm in human-AI interaction.

Yin has led projects in socially impactful technologies at MIT Media Lab, Teach for America, and Ars Electronica, which have been used globally to improve wellbeing, decision-making, and education. Her work has been featured in FastCompany World Changing Ideas, the WSJ Future of Everything Festival, SXSW, Carnegie Hall, BBC Radio, MIT Museum, and the United Nations. Yin has participated in forums such as the Aspen Ideas Festival, where she translates complex psychological and technological concepts for broad audiences.