Kohinoor Darda holds a PhD in Social Cognitive Neuroscience from Bangor University (UK) and has worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Glasgow (Glasgow, UK), Macquarie University (Sydney, Australia), and the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, USA). Her work explores how the human brain and mind engage with art and how humans navigate their social world. She is the founder and CEO of the ARISA Foundation, a not-for-profit research and social work organisation based in Pune, India. At ARISA, she leads initiatives that bridge the arts and sciences, aiming to foster interdisciplinary and intersectional research, promote social transformation, and make psychology, neuroscience, and art more open, equitable, and accessible for all. Outside of the research lab, she enjoys social interactions with fictional characters in novels and underwater aesthetic experiences when scuba diving. A classical dancer trained in Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi, Kohinoor likes to integrate her background in the arts with her interest in psychology and neuroscience in both her research and choreographic endeavours. Wearing many hats is part of her everyday life—and philosophy. She believes that the most meaningful change arises when diverse disciplines, perspectives, and people intersect.
Thalia R. Goldstein, Ph.D. is Associate Professor and Director of Applied Development Psychology at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA, USA. She is the principal investigator of the Play, Learning, Arts, and Youth Lab where her primary work focuses on the effects of engaging in the arts, imagination, and play on children’s and adolescents’ developing social skills, emotion regulation abilities, creativity, and embodiment. Her second line of work focuses on how children and adults understand the fiction/reality border, particularly in cases of characters such as Santa Claus. Her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, The John Templeton Foundation, Arts Connection, the National Science Foundation, the American Psychological Foundation and the Department of Homeland Security. She was the co-editor of the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts (APA Division 10) for eight years and previously was the PI of a National Endowment for the Arts Lab, the Mason Arts Research Center. Dr. Goldstein earned her B.A. from Cornell University in Theatre and Psychology, her MA and Ph.D. from Boston College in Developmental Psychology, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship Yale University.
Eftychia Stamkou is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Amsterdam. Her research brings together interdisciplinary perspectives to explore the dynamic relationship between art and society: How social and cultural contexts shape artistic creation and audience responses, and how artworks, in turn, challenge preconceptions and transform worldviews. Her current work focuses on two main areas: the subtle expression and subversion of gender stereotypes in film and visual art (highlighting how bias in art reflects and perpetuates social inequality) and the impact of aesthetic experiences on early development, including how music exposure fosters imagination and openness in young children. She employs a diverse range of methods, from lab and field experiments to psychophysiology, interviews, big data analysis, and computational modelling. Her research has been supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), the Fulbright Program, and the European Commission, and has been recognized with the Early Career Award from the European Association of Social Psychology. Bridging academic inquiry with real-world impact, she collaborates with institutions such as Carnegie Hall, Google Arts & Culture, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and NEMO Science Museum. Eftychia leads the Amsterdam Arts and Social Sciences (AARTSS) Lab and curates the Where Art Meets Science event series at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) of the University of Amsterdam. She studied music composition at the Athens Conservatorium, earned her psychology bachelor’s degree from Panteion University, and completed her master’s and PhD at the University of Amsterdam.