MSU Psychology’s Meltem Yucel elected as SESP Fellow

July 13, 2026 - Shelly DeJong

Congratulations to Dr. Meltem Yucel, an assistant professor in MSU’s Department of Psychology, on being elected as a Fellow of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology (SESP), a scientific organization dedicated to the advancement of the social psychology discipline. 

This honor recognizes Dr. Yucel's substantial contributions to social psychology as an empirical science. She joins a select group of researchers that grows by less than 5% each year. 

“I’m delighted to join SESP and be among scholars whose work I have long admired,” said Dr. Yucel.  

Dr. Yucel joined MSU’s Department of Psychology in the social/personality research area in 2025 after earning her doctoral degree from the University of Virginia and completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University that was funded by the National Institutes of Health. 

Using insights from social and developmental psychology, Dr. Yucel studies how and why people cooperate. Specifically, her research focuses on how children and adults understand rules, group identity, and moral development.   

Her Moral Minds Lab explores how social and moral thinking is shaped by the environments people grow up in by researching morality across different stages in life and in cultures around the world.