By Ally Hadge, Features Editor
Dr. Elizabeth Goldman is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Yeshiva University. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from the University of California, Davis. Dr. Goldman then furthered her education at the University of California, Santa Cruz to receive a PhD in 2021 in Developmental Psychology. Afterwards, she worked in a cognitive and language developmental lab at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. After spending two years in Canada, Dr. Goldman came to YU.
How long have you worked at YU?
I started working at Stern in 2023. So, this is currently my second year. I am excited to be here.
What do you like most about working at YU?
I think the students are really curious and engaged, which makes being in the classroom a lot of fun. The students ask great questions and I can learn a lot from them. The students are so polite, professional, and pleasant to be around. I came from the UC (University of California) system, which is very large. There were these big classes of 120 or 240 students and it was difficult to get to know anyone. I love that the classes at Stern are smaller. I can get to know students on a more individual basis and we [can] build better connections. It is easier to foster learning and understand what the students’ goals are.
What made you passionate about Psychology?
I took AP (Advanced Placement) Psychology in high school and I was really intrigued by psychology after that. I loved [the] idea of trying to understand human behavior; why we do the things we do, why we say the things we do… all these [questions] that factor into our decision-making. I actually didn’t go into college as a psychology major. I was an international relations major and I just realized it wasn’t for me. I ended up taking a general psychology course as a general education requirement and I ended up really loving the class. After[wards], I ended up taking more psychology courses and eventually changed my major. It all worked out, but it was not the original plan. Not everyone’s path is a straight line. Mine definitely was not, but I feel like I ended up in the right place.
Do you have any advice for students interested in pursuing a career in Psychology?
Get a lot of applied experience. I think what we do in the classroom is important, but faculty in the psychology department work hard to give students foundational knowledge so that they can succeed in other courses and have transferable skills that can assist them after their time at Stern. Whether it’s an internship or research experience in the laboratory… getting those different applied experiences outside the classroom to see what you want to do with your degree is really important.
What is your favorite topic to teach?
A learning course that I am teaching… We talk about how learning can happen outside of formal settings. At home, you can learn a new recipe from a family member, you can teach someone in a study group, or teach your friends or [a] neighbor how to do something. We talk about learning in different types of settings in different contexts. We talk about the different theoretical perspectives and we really look at how they apply in the real world. We want to understand how learning impacts people every day.
What other projects are you working on?
Aside from teaching in the classroom, I supervise students who are pursuing research in the children and technology laboratory on campus. We are doing exciting research right now, such as cross-cultural collaborations with colleagues in Canada and Singapore and getting ready to launch a new cross-cultural collaboration with colleagues in Milan, Italy. That [looks] at how children from different cultural groups learn from their interactions with technological devices. The lab does a lot of work with social robots. The question is: will children choose to learn from a robot informant over a human informant if we manipulate or change certain characteristics about the informant?
…We are also looking at children’s theory of mind abilities. That is the idea of whether children understand that someone else can have different information, thoughts, beliefs, and perspectives than themselves, which is a really hard concept for children to understand. We are trying to see if those abilities not only apply to human informants but also to robots.
What do you want students to know?
It’s ok to not know exactly what you want to do, because I certainly didn’t. It’s okay to change your major. It’s important to just be kind to yourself and patient to find what you are really passionate about… Even if it’s not the most straightforward path from A to B, it doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing. Do what you’re excited about; it’s okay if it takes a little bit of time to figure out what that is. You do not have to have everything planned out right now. I am a planner and I wished that’s how life worked, but it’s not and that’s okay.
Photo Caption: Dr. Elizabeth Goldman
Photo Credit: Dr. Elizabeth Goldman