I am an Associate Professor of Social Psychology at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, where I am involved in both undergraduate and postgraduate teaching as well as research supervision. I obtained B.Sc. (Psychology and Human Physiology), Hons. B.Sc. (Psychology, cum laude), and M.Sc. (Counselling Psychology, cum laude) degrees at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, before attending the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar (Paul Roos Gymnasium & Worcester College, 2004) between 2004 and 2007. I graduated with a D.Phil. degree in 2008 (Dissertation Title: Affective Mediators of Intergroup Contact: Cross-sectional and Longitudinal Analyses in South Africa).
My academic interests include the social psychology of intergroup relations, group processes, cross-cultural psychology, quantitative research methods, and multivariate statistics. My specializations include intergroup contact and prejudice reduction, intergroup emotions, interpersonal- and cross-group friendships, and advanced research methods (longitudinal survey research and experimental methods) and advanced statistical analyses (longitudinal, multi-level, and multi-group structural equation modelling).
My research focuses primarily on the relationship between social diversity and intergroup contact (cross-group friendships), and how these influence intergroup emotions, prejudice, and stereotypes in post-conflict societies. I specialize in advanced quantitative research methodology (longitudinal survey research and experimental methods) and advanced statistical analyses (longitudinal, multi-level, and multi-group structural equation modelling). I have published in leading international journals, including American Psychologist, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, the British Journal of Social Psychology, Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, and the Journal of Social Issues.
I have received several awards for Teaching Excellence (2010, 2013, 2023) and in 2015 I was a co-recipient of the Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize for “the best paper or article of the year on intergroup relations” from the Society for Psychological Study of Social Issues. I am a member of the European Association of Social Psychology (EASP), the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP), the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI). I am an Associate Editor at the British Journal of Social Psychology and have previously served as Consulting Editor at Group Processes and Intergroup Relations and Guest Editor at European Journal of Social Psychology.