My research aims to understand cultural universality and diversity. My research to date has primarily focused on (1) how religious concepts like gods and spirits are represented in individual minds, (2) how such concepts are transmitted from mind to mind, and (3) how we come to believe in such concepts via social learning heuristics and personal religious experiences. I take an interdisciplinary approach to my research, combining theoretical insights, methodologies, and innovative quantitative tools from evolutionary biology, cognitive science, and the humanities. I earned a PhD in Psychology and an MA in Religious Studies from UC Santa Barbara, and a BS in Psychology and a BA in History from UC Davis.