I am an Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology at University of California, Riverside.

I have received my Ph.D. from the Sociology Dept. at University of Iowa in 2013 and have trained as a post-doctoral researcher at Pascal Boyer‘s Evolution, Cognition and Culture Laboratory at University of Lyon (France) between 2013 and 2015. I have also previously worked as an Assistant Professor at the Global Studies Institute at Georgia State University (2015-2018).

I am a sociologist who studies inter-group relations and civic behavior by incorporating theories and tools from the cognitive sciences and neurology. I combine multilevel and cross-national survey analysis with neuroscientific experimental techniques to investigate how micro-dynamics of conflict, well-being and civicness are related to macro-level social systems and ideologies.

See Curriculum Vitae.

Contact: rbfirat@ucr.edu

UCR website here.