Lab Director

Efrén Pérez, Ph.D.
Email: perezeo@ucla.edu

See About Me page for a biography
Visit the Publications page for a history of our work

Lab managers

Email: uclarepslab@gmail.com

Ramona Alhambra | CV
Ramona is a fourth year PhD candidate at UCLA specializing in Race and Ethnicity Politics and American Politics. She earned a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Washington – Seattle, as well as a MA degree in Political Science from UCLA. Her research interests generally include Political Psychology, Race and Ethnicity politics, Experiments, and Intergroup Relations. 

Emily Ortiz | CV
Emily is a third year PhD student at UCLA, specializing in Race and Ethnic Politics and American Politics. Emily holds a B.S. in Political Science from Florida State University, with a minor in Sociology. Her research focuses on the development of conservative political behavior among Latinx populations in the U.S., utilizing methodologies like surveys and lab experiments to explore the psychological motivations behind these ideologies. She has presented her work at the University of Michigan’s Emerging Scholars Conference and is currently involved in several research projects at UCLA, including studies on conservative Latinx political socialization and the influence of right-wing media. In addition to her research, Emily has served as a teaching assistant for various courses on Latinx politics as well as experimental methodologies. 

psychology affiliates

Gustavo A. Mártir Luna | CV
Gustavo is a fourth year PhD student at UCLA. He is a California native, who was born In LA, raised in Sacramento, and earned his BA and MA in psychology from Cal State University, Chico. His research explores the psychological mechanisms driving political decision-making among bilingual individuals. Specifically, he investigates the complex interplay between language, cognition, and social identities and their impact on political behavior. When not engaging in research and teaching, Gustavo likes to go line-dancing, to comedy shows, and listening to live music while eating tacos. 

Kasheena G. Rogbeer | CV
Kasheena earned dual BAs in Psychology and Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies from Colgate University. Following her undergraduate studies, she managed the GABBA Lab at the University of Georgia for two years. Now in her third year as a PhD student at UCLA, her research focuses on the intersections of identity and politics and aims to uncover the factors that foster political solidarity between racial and ethnic groups. Specifically, she examines how early life socialization, immigration-related experiences, and acculturation processes shape identity and contribute to collective political action.

Sydney Tran | CV
Sydney is a second year PhD student at UCLA. She received her bachelor’s degree at Arizona State University and is a social psychology PhD student in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is interested in applying interdisciplinary research methods to understand the downstream consequences of unequal power dynamics, particularly in the context of racial groups. Her research interests broadly focus on the moderating effects of contextual variables such as identity and environment on interpersonal relations.

political science affiliates

Tricia Huynh | CV
Tricia is a sixth year PhD candidate at UCLA, specializing in Race, Ethnicity, and Politics. She received her B.A. in American Politics at the University of California, San Diego and her MA in Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research interests include Asian American political behavior, political psychology, and panethnic identity. Specifically, her research is about understanding how Asian Americans use their social and panethnic identities to inform their political behavior.

Raquel Centeno | CV
Raquel is a sixth year PhD candidate studying American politics and methods at USC. Her research falls largely in the areas of public opinion, political psychology, and political behavior. Much of Raquel’s research is motivated by questions of how voters’ various group identities influence their perceptions of politics, and her dissertation uses the cases of Latino and white partisans to examine how racial and partisan group identities together shape partisan polarization. Beyond her dissertation work, Raquel’s other research examines how identity interacts with political institutions to impact voter behavior, such as how different voting and primary systems influence voter turnout across racial and ethnic groups.

Alexandria Davis | CV
Alexandria is fifth year PhD candidate at UCLA with a concentration in Race, Ethnicity, and Politics and American Politics. Her dissertation studies the relationship between racialized voter apathy and non-voting amongst Black voters. Broadly, her research interests include racial and ethnic politics, Black political behavior, political psychology, intersectionality, and voting. 

Joshua Ferrer | CV
Joshua is a fifth year PhD candidate at UCLA with concentrations in American politics, methods, racial and ethnic politics, and comparative politics. His research focuses on the link between electoral institutions and representation, partisanship, and participation, with a special emphasis on U.S. election administration and local and state election officials. Joshua holds a MA in Political Science from UCLA and a MA in Politics from the University of Otago, which he earned on a Fulbright Grant to New Zealand. His work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as The American Political Science Review, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and Representation; in reports with the Bipartisan Policy Center and Transparency International; and in media outlets such as The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage and The Conversation. Joshua’s work has also received coverage from major news sites including NBC, NPR, and The Guardian.

Joyce Nguy | CV
Joyce is a fifth year PhD candidate at UCLA studying campaign rhetoric, minority candidates, and Asian American political behavior. Prior to her graduate studies at UCLA, she received her BA from UC Irvine in Political Science and Education Sciences, and was a Fulbright Scholar in Taiwan. She enjoys playing around with data in R Studio and hanging out with her two dogs, Miso and Sunny. 

Jessica Cobian | CV
Jessica is a fourth year PhD student and Senior Fellow for the Voting Rights Project at UCLA. She is currently studying the effects of anti-immigrant rhetoric on Latino voting behavior. Prior to attending UCLA, Jessica worked on campaign management and policy analysis focusing on immigration, democracy, and technology at the Center for American Progress in Washington DC. She previously worked as an immigration campaign manager for Sojourners, as a lead organizer for the ACCE Institute, and a community organizer for Faith in Action in California. Jessica has published her research in the Annual Review of Political Science (ARPS) and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). She has also written opinion editorials in the Voice of San Diego, Univision, La Prensa and Colorlines. Jessica holds a MPP from American University in Washington, DC, and a B.A. in Political Science from UC Riverside.

Siyu Liang | CV
Siyu is a fourth year Ph.D. candidate in Political Science and an MS student in Statistics at UCLA. Her research interests are computational social science and political communication, with a focus on examining media dynamics within both authoritarian and democratic countries. She studies the impact of U.S.-China relations on Asian Americans and Chinese transnational propaganda. She received her B.A. in Political Science and Statistics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Giovanni Castro Irizarry | CV
Giovanni is a third year PhD student at UCLA. His research details how Latinos navigate racial classifications and how their racial identifications influence their political behavior and attitudes. Prior to coming to UCLA, he studied at the Pennsylvania State University and the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras. His research is published in the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics.

LAB ALUMNI

Former Graduate students

• Bianca Vicuña, Ph.D. | Assistant Professor of Political Science, UC Davis
• Chase A. Privett, Ph.D. | Assistant Professor of Political Science, Morningside University
• Crystal Robertson, Ph.D. | UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow, UC Irvine
• Kristen Brock-Petroshius, Ph.D. | Assistant Professor of Social Welfare, Stonybrook University
• Jason Chin, Ph.D.
• Pete Fisher, Ph.D.
• Angie Gutierrez, Ph.D. | Assistant Professor of Mexican American and Latina\o Studies, UT Austin
• Vivien Leung, Ph.D. | Assistant Professor of Political Science, Santa Clara University
• Ana Oaxaca, Ph.D. | Postdoctoral Fellow, UT Austin
• Marcel F. Roman, Ph.D. | Assistant Professor of Government, Harvard
• Christine M. Slaughter, Ph.D. | Assistant Professor of Political Science, Boston University

FORMER UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANTS

• Hannah Cass
• Ying Xuan Chua
• Kaumron Eidgahy | J.D. Candidate, Harvard Law School
• Brett Hu | Ph.D. Student, Communications, UCLA
• Kevin Phan
• Janet Rivera
• Enya Kuo | Ph.D. Student, Psychology, Yale University
• Allison Ramos | Ph.D. Student, Politics, Princeton University
• Mariella Solano
• Nico Studen | Ph.D. Student, Political Science, Stanford University
• Eric Tillett
• Celine Tsoi