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About the Lab

We are an interdisciplinary laboratory led by Professors Karen Quigley and Lisa Feldman Barrett, and our research group consists of postdoctoral researchers, graduate students, undergraduate students, and full-time research staff. We collaborate with scientists and scholars around the globe, united by a passion to understand how a human mind arises from the continual conversation between a brain, its body, and the surrounding world (populated with other brains-in-bodies). We are located in the Department of Psychology at Northeastern University, with secondary sites in the Department of Psychiatry and the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA USA.

The IASLab is best known for our research on emotion, stress, and affect, but we are broadly interested in how your brain understands what is going on in your body in relation to what is happening around you in the world, filtered through your past experience. This describes psychological phenomena like emotion, stress, and affect, but also perception, attention, memory, decision-making, action, categorization, and other topics that are conventionally studied separately. We’ve begun to consider how metabolism plays a role in these phenomena. To explore these topics, we use a combination of functional neuroimaging and a variety of methods used within the lab and in the world, including physiological measurements, behavioral tests, and ratings of experience. Collectively, we call this the biopsychosocial construction of the mind, or simply the constructed mind approach. See the research areas below to see some of our research projects that use this approach.

If you are interested in participating in the IASLab as a research assistant, please contact Zoe Kross at [email protected] and include your resume or CV. Available opportunities for internships within the IASLab are detailed below.

Read testimonials from former research assistants.

The IASLab is seeking part-time research interns for projects on emotion and affect, implementing behavioral and psychophysiological research methods. Research interns work closely with advanced graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, or research scientists at the IASLab’s Northeastern University location. Typical responsibilities include study design, study implementation, scheduling and recruitment of participants, stimuli development, and data acquisition and analysis. The time commitment is 10 hours per week, plus a one-hour lab meeting, for a minimum of 1 semester. We prioritize students in the hiring process who can commit to more than 1 semester.

These volunteer internship positions are available on a competitive basis for Northeastern and non-Northeastern students alike. The IASLab also offers paid internships through the work/study program for eligible Northeastern students. Northeastern students can also earn course credit through participation in a directed study, independent study, thesis or research project, or a one-semester lab course. For more information, please contact Zoe Kross at [email protected] and fill out an application (Microsoft Word 2007+ format).

Massachusetts General Hospital Research Internships

The IASLab is seeking part-time research interns for projects on emotion and affect, implementing behavioral, psychophysiological and neuroscientific research methods. Typical responsibilities include study design, study implementation, scheduling and recruitment of participants, stimuli development, and data acquisition and analysis. In all positions, students work closely with advanced graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, or research scientists at MGH. The time commitment is 12 hours per week for a minimum of one year.

A limited number of paid fellowships may be available, or Northeastern students can register for course credit or work/study (4 credits; PSYC4991), or earn work/study hours, if they are eligible. For more information, please contact Zoe Kross at [email protected] and fill out an application (Microsoft Word 2007+ format).

Announcements

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We are so happy to announce that Dr. Karen S. Quigley, one of the directors here at the IASL, is being honored with the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Department of Psychology at the Ohio…

Great news! On February 4th, Phil and Theresa welcomed a new son named Lewis Vander Woude Deming, into this world. Then, just a few hours later, Jordan’s wife Amelia gave birth to Naomi Joy…

One of our undergraduate researchers, Cate Morath, has just received a 2025-2026 PEAK Shout It Out Award to cover part of her conference travel to Pittsburgh to attend SAS and present a poster….

Leman and husband Mustafa have a new son, born December 17, 2025! His name is Yahya. We are all so excited to welcome a new member to the IASL family. Congrats, Leman!

Kieran was just awarded the 2026 SAS Best Dissertation in Affective Science Award. Congrats, Kieran!

Kristen was recently installed as the new Robert K. and Dale J. Weary Chair in Social Psychology at The Ohio State University. Congrats, Kristen!

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Videos

An overview of our lab’s work.

more at lisafeldmanbarrett.com

Variation is the Norm: Population Thinking in the Science of Emotion (AAAS 2020 McGovern Award)

Subcortical contributions to emotion, stress and cognition

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