Congratulations to Dr. Meltem Yucel, an assistant professor in MSU’s Department of Psychology, on receiving the SAGE Early Career Trajectory Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP).
The SPSP is the world’s largest organization of personality and social psychologists with more than 7500 members. They strive to advance the science, teaching, and application of personality and social psychology.
This award recognizes the outstanding achievements by early career scholars in social and personality psychology, including contributions to teaching, research, or service to the field. This award is given in collaboration with SAGE Publications.
“I am truly honored to be one of the recipients of the SAGE Early Career Trajectory Award. Having previously received the SAGE Emerging Scholar Award in 2023, it is meaningful to be recognized again at this stage of my career," said Yucel. “I’m deeply grateful to my mentors, colleagues, collaborators, and students for their support; to the Society for Personality and Social Psychology and SAGE for this recognition; and to the reviewers for their time and thoughtful consideration.”
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.
“We are thrilled that Dr. Meltem Yucel has been awarded the 2026 SAGE Early Career Trajectory Award. She is the very deserving recipient of this award, which recognizes highly influential researchers at the start of their career. Indeed, Dr. Yucel is already becoming a highly-cited researcher in the field of social psychology and beyond, despite having joined MSU Psychology only last year,” said Joseph Cesario department chair in the Department of Psychology. “We are thankful to have such an outstanding researcher here at MSU. Congratulations Dr. Yucel!”
Yucel will receive this award formally during the SPSP Annual Convention in February 2027.