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Join us for 'Prototyping and Stereotyping in the Intersectional Representation of Gender, Race, and Sexual Orientation' with Dr. Mary-Ann Ciosk as part of our Queer Human Rights Seminar Series.

When: 1pm-2pm Wednesday, 18 February 2026

Where: Seminar Room, Irish Centre for Human Rights, University of Galway

Speaker Bio: Dr. Mary-Ann Ciosk is a postdoctoral researcher working with scientific co-ordinator Ekaterina Yahyaoui Krivenko on the Horizon Europe project EMMELO (European Men, Masculinity and Extremist Leadership Online) at the School of Law. She completed her PhD in Neural and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Trieste (Italy) as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow in the G-VERSITY network, focussing on subtle cognitive biases that perpetuate systemic discrimination, with a research internship at the Open University (UK). Previously, she achieved her BA in English Literature and Psychology at the University of Western Ontario (Canada), her MSc in Psychology at KU Leuven (Belgium), with a research internship at Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience (Ireland).]

Abstract: Ciosk’s research examines how individuals engage in prototyping and stereotyping others on the basis of their combined gender, race, and sexual orientation categories. Specifically, it investigates how some categories are cognitively combined more easily than others and the underlying causes and repercussions of these biases. The first part focusses on intersectional representations of gender (women and men) and race (Black and White people) through experiments conducted in Italy, the United States, and South Africa, while the second examines intersectional asymmetries in the cognitive combination of gay men and Black men. Implications for social inequalities and policy are discussed.