NAS Recognizes Social Science Scholar for "Cutting-Edge Work"

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has announced that Molly J. Crockett, Member (2025–26) in the School of Social Science, is a recipient of a 2026 Troland Research Award. Crockett, a cognitive scientist, has, in the words of NAS, "redefined our understanding of moral cognition."

Crockett's research "investigates relationships between self and society, power and knowledge, technology and culture. Much of their work seeks to understand the nature of epistemic injustice. Through timely and elegant empirical studies, Crockett’s work has elucidated the role that learning and decision processes play in diverse moral behaviors and has shown how technologies such as social media can exploit these processes to erode trust in communities."

Their work was further praised for having "significantly advanced our understanding of moral cognition, not only through original empirical discoveries, but through an expansive and interdisciplinary approach that is reshaping how psychologists think about morality in real-world contexts."

Crockett is a prolific scholar whose writing reaches both specialist and public audiences, with publications in Nature, Science, and Trends in Cognitive Sciences, alongside bylines in The Guardian, The Washington Post, and Scientific American. During their time at IAS, Crockett is exploring how artificial intelligence research is shifting collective understandings of human cognition.

Read more on the National Academy of Sciences website.