Welcome Dr. Courtney Ball!

We are thrilled to introduce our newest Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Courtney Ball! Courtney brings strong expertise on children’s moral development to our group and she has already hit the ground running in continuing this research in the lab.

Courtney writes “I am excited to join the UNCG community as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the DUCK lab. I grew up in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, but have spent several years freezing in the north. I completed my undergraduate studies at the University of Notre Dame and graduated in 2010 with degrees in Psychology and Philosophy. I completed graduate work in Developmental Psychology under the direction of Dr. Judith G. Smetana at the University of Rochester, where I earned my M.A. in 2014, as well as a Quantitative Methods in Psychology Certificate in 2015, and my Ph.D. in 2018. In addition to teaching and fostering community relations, my current focus is on developing, conducting, and overseeing research projects in the DUCK lab and at the Greensboro Science Center.

In the lab, my research centers on the affective, cognitive, and social processes associated with the development of moral reasoning in early and middle childhood. In particular, my work has focused on the developmental impacts of empathy and social inequalities on early moral understanding about harm and injustice. At the Greensboro Science Center, I am working with the DUCK Lab team to examine children’s moral judgements, status, and attributions about different types of animals.”