- Associate Professor, School of Psychology, UNSW
Steve's research is grounded in cognitive psychology, with strong links to social psychology, clinical psychology, and neuroscience. His lab specialises in relationships between motivation, emotion, and attentional control. Topics include mechanisms of emotion-driven attentional bias, how attention and emotion shape our awareness of the world, impacts of physical and emotional stress on cognition, and emotion regulation. He also specialise in understanding the implications of these processes for real-world safety, including on the roadways.
Steve received his B.A. in Psychology at Brandeis University in 1994, followed by a PhD in Psychology at Harvard University in 2002. This was followed by postdoctoral fellowships at Yale and Vanderbilt Universities. Prior to taking up his position at UNSW Sydney, he was Assistant Professor and then tenured Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Delaware (USA), where he continues to maintain Affiliated Associate Professor status. He is the recipient of multiple teaching and mentoring awards. In 2021, he co-authored a new textbook on Cognition (Oxford University Press), which received the Most Promising New Textbook Award from the Textbook and Academic Authors Association.
He is passionate about fostering understanding of psychology outside the university. Please feel free to contact him if you would like to arrange an educational workshop or presentation to your school or organisation.
Experience
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–presentAdjunct Associate Professor, University of Delaware
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–presentARC Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of New South Wales
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2006–2013Assistant Professor, University of Delaware
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2013–2013Associate Professor, University of Delaware
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2003–2006Postdoctoral Fellow, Yale University
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2002–2003Postdoctoral Fellow, Vanderbilt University
Education
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2002Harvard University, Ph.D. in Psychology
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1994Brandeis University, B.A. in Psychology
Grants and Contracts
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2014Appareo Vision 1000 flight data acquisition system and the Mobile Eye gaze tracking system
- Role:
- Investigator
- Funding Source:
- UNSW MREII
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2012How emotion shapes perception: Delineating structural, temporal, and representational properties of emotion-induced blindness
- Role:
- Chief investigator
- Funding Source:
- Australian Research Council
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2010Emotion’s impact on mechanisms of conscious perception
- Role:
- Principal investigator
- Funding Source:
- National Institutes of Health
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2009Neuro-cognitive self-regulation mechanisms and their relation to childhood and adolescent obesity
- Role:
- Principal investigator
- Funding Source:
- National Institutes of Health
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2003Attentional guidance by emotional salience
- Role:
- Principal investigator
- Funding Source:
- National Institutes of Health
Contact Steven for
- General
- Media request
- Speaking request
- Consulting / Advising
- Research collaboration
- Research supervision
- Location: Sydney, Australia
- Website
- X (formerly Twitter): @SBMost
- Article Feed
- Joined