Hello, I’m Kunalan Manokara, and welcome to my website! I am a social psychologist and affective scientist. Much of my recent research is situated at the intersection of emotion and identity.
I currently work at Duke University, where I am the Co-Investigator on a research grant from the Templeton Religion Trust with Patty van Cappellen. Together, we examine the roles of empathy, compassion, and other positive emotions in impacting societally relevant outcomes – such as prosocial behaviours and intergroup cooperation.
I was awarded my Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands) in June 2023, where I was supervised by Disa Sauter and Agneta Fischer. I was then a Postdoctoral Visitor at York University (Canada) between 2023-2024, where I worked with Kerry Kawakami.
My research has thus far been supported by more than $280,000 in grant funding. I have presented my work at more than 20 international academic conferences, and have published multiple scientific articles in the key journals of my field. I have also designed and taught undergraduate level courses in psychology and statistics, in addition to having supervised Bachelor and Master theses.
In recognition of my scholarship, I was named in the inaugural batch of Graduate Research Fellows by the Social Science Research Council of Singapore in 2021. Alongside research and teaching, I also serve on the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee of the Association for Psychological Science.
Kunalan Manokara, Ph.D. 