Rate My Professor Peter Mende-Siedlecki

Peter Mende-Siedlecki, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Delaware, within the area of social psychology. He earned a Ph.D. in Psychology from Princeton University in 2014 (advisor: Alex Todorov), an M.A. in Psychology from Princeton University in 2011, and a B.A. in Neuroscience and Behavior from Columbia University in 2007. Following his doctoral training, he completed a postdoctoral associateship in the Department of Psychology at New York University from 2014 to 2016 (advisor: Jay Van Bavel). He joined the University of Delaware as an Assistant Professor in 2016 and was promoted to Associate Professor in May 2022.

Mende-Siedlecki directs the Mende-Siedlecki Lab, where his research examines the perceptual and neural mechanisms underlying social cognition, including the formation of rapid impressions from facial cues, behaviors, traits, group memberships, and social contexts, as well as racial biases in pain perception and healthcare disparities. His methodological approach integrates experimental social psychology, cognitive neuroscience, perceptual psychophysics, and computational modeling. Key publications include "Social attributions from faces: Determinants, consequences, accuracy, and functional significance" (2015), "The social evaluation of faces: a meta-analysis of functional neuroimaging studies" (2013), "Diagnostic Value Underlies Asymmetric Updating of Impressions in the Morality and Ability Domains" (2013), "Racial bias in pediatric pain perception" (Haas et al., in press, Journal of Pain), "Target weight and gender moderate anti-Black bias in pain perception" (Huang et al., 2024, Social Psychology and Personality Science), and "What factors predict anti-Black bias in pain perception?: An internal meta-analysis across 40 experimental studies" (Lin et al., 2023, Social and Personality Psychology Compass). Mende-Siedlecki has received the Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science (2019) and was elected Fellow of the Society for Experimental Social Psychology (2022). He serves on editorial boards for Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (since 2018), Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and NeuroLeadership Journal, and holds leadership roles such as Social Area Head in his department. He teaches courses including Social Neuroscience (NSCI442), Research Methods (PSYC207), and graduate seminars in social perception and moral psychology.