About Kristen
Kristen A. Lindquist, Ph.D., is a Professor and the incoming Robert K. and Dale J. Weary Chair in Social Psychology in the Department of Psychology at The Ohio State University. At OSU, she will be faculty within the Social Psychology Program, Cognitive Neuroscience Program, and Center for Cognitive and Brain Imaging.
Dr. Lindquist directs the Affective Science Lab, which consists of a team of psychologists, physiologists, and neuroscientists spanning The Ohio State University and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Collectively, research within the lab seeks to understand how the mind and brain create emotions. Dr. Lindquist’s research employs scientific methods from social psychology, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, psychophysiology, neuroscience, linguistics, and cultural evolution to weigh in on how both basic neural mechanisms and the social environment impact emotional experiences, emotional perception, and emotion regulation. Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and private foundations.
Dr. Lindquist received her A.B. in Psychology and English from Boston College in 2004. She went on to receive a Ph.D. in Psychology from Boston College in 2010 and was a postdoctoral fellow at the interdisciplinary Harvard University Mind/Brain/Behavior Initiative from 2010-2012, during which she was affiliated with the Department of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. Her first academic position took her to North Carolina, where she was a professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and the Biomedical Research Imaging Center in the school of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 2012-2025.
Dr. Lindquist is the recipient of multiple honors, including the early career "Rising Star in Psychological Science" award from the Association for Psychological Science, being named a Fellow of the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, and a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. She has also received multiple awards for both teaching and mentorship, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Provost’s Johnstone Excellence in Teaching Award.
In addition to her academic appointments, Dr. Lindquist has served for multiple years on the Executive Board of the Society for Affective Science, an international scholarly society focused on promoting innovative interdisciplinary research on emotion, moods, attitudes, decision-making, and other phenomena related to affect. She was President of the society from 2024-2025. She is currently an Associate Editor at the journal Emotion and was an inaugural Associate Editor at the journal Affective Science from 2019-2023. From 2015-2019, she was an Associate Editor at the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
When not doing science, Dr. Lindquist is spending time with her two daughters, husband, and Maine Coon cat. She enjoys reading fiction, digging in her garden, doing yoga, traveling, and being outdoors.