BlackBoxPhD


About BlackBoxPhD

I’m Sean Young, PhD, behavioral psychologist, educator, and Director of the UCLA Center for Digital Behavior. I’ve worked with some amazing collaborators and friends on how to apply psychology in life. I’m inviting you to online fireside chats with them to give you a sneak peak into their brilliant minds and help you improve your life, work, and relationships. Together, we’ll interview experts in psychology, health, technology, and business. We’ll leave you with weekly take-home points to teach you about Psychology, Products, and People.


Succeeding as a Woman in Male-Dominated Worlds

Luba Kagan is the Investor Network Director at StartUp Health, a global platform for health & wellness technology enabled startups. She connects VCs, corporate investors, and angels with strategic investment opportunities. She is also an active coach for Healthcare Transformers in the StartUp Health community focusing on capitalization, fundraising, and strategies designed to drive equity value creation. As a successful woman in male-dominated fields, we’re excited to hear her perspective and advice.


Using Image Recognition Software to Find Your Soulmate… and for Social Good

This week’s guest is Justin Long, a researcher and engineer at 3 Tier Logic. As you may have read in recent coverage on Justin’s Tinderbox project, he has figured out a way to automate dating apps like Tinder using image-recognition algorithms, saving time and, as we’ll hear about today, planting the seed for future work in image recognition outside of online dating.


Tricks for Making Better Decisions for Your Future

We had the pleasure of interviewing Professor Hal Hershfield this week. Hal is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. He teaches and researches the psychology behind decision-making. He’s a buddy of mine from graduate school, has a great sense of humor and worth taking some time to meet.


Being a Doctor is More than Giving Medication

Today I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Lillian Gelberg, Professor and Vice Chair for Academic Affairs in the Department of Family Medicine and Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at UCLA. She’s a family physician as well as a health services researcher studying how to make vulnerable populations healthier.