Esra Nur Turan-Küçük, Ph.D.

I received my B.A. in Psychology from Istanbul Sehir University, where I wrote my senior thesis on the development of the concept of possibility and its relationship with active participation in young children. During my undergraduate years, I worked as a lab manager in the Developmental & Psychopathology Lab at Istanbul Sehir University under the supervision of Dr. Fatıma Tuba Yaylacı. 

I completed a summer research assistantship at Harvard's Lab for Developmental Studies, working in Prof. Susan Carey's lab.

In 2020, I received the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship and began my Ph.D. program at Boston University. I received my M.A. from Boston University's Psychological and Brain Sciences Program in 2022. I recently completed my PhD in the Developmental Science Program at Boston University, where I worked with Dr. Melissa M. Kibbe on the conceptual and cognitive development of infants and young children. My research focuses on the conceptual and cognitive development of infants and young children. 

I am interested in the conceptual and cognitive development of infants and young children. My primary research line investigates the frameworks young children use to comprehend the concept of possibility. Specifically, my research focuses on how young children represent, prepare, and plan for present and future mutually exclusive possible events, and how they keep track of identities of the mutually exclusive possibilities. 

Additionally, I am exploring a related avenue in biological conceptual development. Here, I investigate whether infants have an early-emerging concept of plants as categorically different from non-alive things. This research aims to uncover the foundational aspects of conceptual categorization. Together, these research streams contribute to a broader understanding of how conceptual frameworks develop during the early stages of human life.