Meet The Media MOSAIC Lab!
Muniba Saleem, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
Dr. Muniba Saleem obtained her PhD in Social Psychology from Iowa State University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Saleem studies how media affects interpersonal and intergroup relations between racial, ethnic, and religious groups using social scientific methods. Applying social psychological theories, Dr. Saleem has studied the effects of media representations of marginalized groups in violent contexts on hostile attitudes and support for harmful policies towards depicted members (Saleem & Anderson, 2013; Saleem et al., 2017). Recent work has examined how the same negative media depictions influence minority members’ social, psychological, and political outcomes (Saleem et al., 2023). Longitudinal and experimental research reveals that negative media depictions adversely influence immigrants’ integration and trust in American politics (Saleem et al., 2019) but at the same time minorities are motivated to seek collective action to improve their ingroup’s image and status in the larger society (Saleem et al., 2020; 2023). Dr. Saleem’s work has been published in journals such as Communication Research, Journal of Communication, Child Development, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and American Psychologist. Her research has been funded by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, and Facebook.
Nancy Molina-Rogers, M.A.
Graduate Student Researcher
Doctoral Candidate
Nancy Molina-Rogers is a graduate student in the Department of Communication. She received her B.A. in Global Studies and Spanish from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2013, and earned a M.A. in Communication Studies from California State University, Northridge in 2016. Her academic and research interests include Media communication and exploring how portrayals of women on television impact perceptions of identity in children, adolescents, and adults.
Sovannie Len, M.A.
Graduate Student Researcher
Lab Manager
Sovannie Len (She/Her) is a graduate student in the Department of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She earned a B.A. and M.A. in Psychology at San Jose State University before pivoting to the Communication field. Len examines how race and identity transform in conjunction with a media environment, particularly entertainment media.
Erick Garcia, M.A.
Graduate Student Researcher
Erick Garcia (He/Him/Él) is currently a M.A./Ph.D. student in the Department of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received his M.A. in Psychological Research from California State University, Long Beach in 2023 and his B.A. in Psychology from the University of California, Irvine in 2020.
Previously, his research focused on digital emotional contagion; centering on source attribution around human and algorithm interactions with digital media, particularly on social media platforms. He has also been part of several research labs and projects, whose interests span intergroup relations, social justice, vision science, human perception, aggression, collective action, personal control, priming, and ostracism.
His current research is situated at the intersection of media effects, intergroup relations, social psychology, and computer-mediated communication. Specifically, he is interested in investigating how intergroup and interpersonal social processes (e.g., social identity, normative influence, social approval, emotion, contagion, and community) affect group processes on social media platforms.
Ismaharif Ismail, M.Soc.Sci.
Graduate Student Researcher
Ismaharif Ismail is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received both his B.Soc.Sci. and M.Soc.Sci (Social and Organizational Psychology concentration) degrees in Psychology from the National University of Singapore. At the intersection of motivation science, social identity and communication technologies, Ismaharif broadly studies group processes, intergroup relations and inequality. His work draws on social psychological theories and adopts a multi-method approach, using a combination of experimental designs, longitudinal studies, behavioral intervention programs, big-team science, and analyses of public datasets using structural equation modeling. His recent research explores how media environments and social psychological processes shape national resilience and social cohesion. Using quantitative methods, he leverages on social technologies to foster collective commitment and striving in citizens (e.g., civic participation, collective action). Ismaharif’s work has appeared in outlets from a variety of disciplines such as Computers in Human Behavior, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Social Psychological and Personality Science, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and European Journal of Personality.