Dr. Ouroz Khan

Dr. Ouroz Khan is an Assistant Professor in the Psychology and Behaviour programme at the School of Liberal Studies and Media. She is a cognitive scientist by training. She completed her undergraduate studies in Psychology from the University of Allahabad and her postgraduate degree in Cognitive Science from the Centre of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences, University of Allahabad. During her master's programme, she conducted research titled "Planning of Sequential Saccades in Search of Face" using eye-tracking methodology. She also worked as a Junior Research Fellow on the project "An Impact of Literacy on Cognitive Functioning of Illiterate Adults – An fMRI Study" at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute, the Netherlands.

Dr. Khan successfully completed her Ph.D. in Psychology from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. Her doctoral research examined the role of magnitude in loss aversion under risk using approaches from decision research. Her work has been published in several reputed international journals, including Cognition, Decision, and the Journal of Experimental Psychology.

Dr. Khan joined UPES as an Assistant Professor in January 2024. Prior to joining UPES, she served as a Teaching Assistant for four years during her Ph.D. at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. In this role, she assisted in teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses, including Introduction to Psychology, Introduction to Cognitive Science, and Cognitive Processes: From Labs to Field. She also delivered guest lectures on experiment design using PsychoPy as part of the Basics of Programming for Cognitive Science course for postgraduate students.

Dr. Khan's research interests primarily lie in the areas of human judgment and decision-making, with a particular focus on the psychological valuation of gains and losses. Her doctoral research examined the role of magnitude in loss aversion under risky choice, challenging existing theoretical perspectives and contributing to advancements in behavioural decision science.

Beyond her doctoral research, Dr. Khan has a strong interest in applied research on magnitude representation and numerical cognition. Her work on Magnitude Judgment in the Numerical and Temporal Domains explores how individuals estimate numbers, time, and changes in quantity. She has also collaborated with Berkeley Haas on a study investigating public understanding of the exponential growth of COVID-19 and its influence on the adoption of non-pharmaceutical interventions. 

Her research further explores the evaluation of increases and decreases in physical quantities through visual interfaces, such as progress bars, as well as the perception of waiting times in human-computer interactions and their impact on affective judgment and service evaluation. Through her research, Dr. Khan seeks to advance the understanding of human decision-making and bridge the gap between theoretical insights and real-world applications.

Dr. Khan advocates for an innovative and student-centric learning environment through the integration of emerging technologies, active learning methodologies, virtual simulations, and collaborative platforms. She supports flexible curriculum design and self-paced learning to accommodate diverse learning needs and styles. 

She believes in fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and experiential learning that effectively bridges theoretical concepts with real-world applications. For Dr. Khan, continuous assessment and constructive feedback are essential for supporting students' academic and personal growth. Through interactive classroom sessions, she encourages critical thinking, effective communication, teamwork, and inclusivity, creating a supportive learning environment that equips students with strong analytical and problem-solving skills.

She has taught courses like Sports Psychology, Psychological Assesment, Cognitive Neuropsychology, Techniques in Neuropsychology, User Experience Research, Introduction to R to undergraduate students at UPES.
 

Mrs. Khan has earned prestigious awards and grants. She received a Research Scholar Travel Grant from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, facilitating her work presentation at the ICPS Annual Convention 2023 in Brussels, Belgium. 

Mrs. Khan also obtained a Travel and Accommodation Grant from the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO) for the 5th Bangalore workshop at the Centre for Neuroscience, IISc, Bangalore in 2018.

In the academic year 2017-18, she was awarded a Junior Researcher Fellowship in a project funded by the Department of Science and Technology. Additionally, Mrs. Khan qualified for the National Eligibility Test conducted by the University Grant Commission. 

She received the Award of Excellence in 2016 from the University of Allahabad for a Certificate of Merit in Cognitive Science (2014-2016) and was a recipient of the Masters Fellowship during her master's program at the Centre for Behavioral and Cognitive Science, University of Allahabad.

Dr. Khan has made significant contributions to the fields of decision-making and cognitive science through a series of research presentations at prestigious national and international conferences. Her doctoral research, which examined the role of magnitude in loss aversion under risky choice, has been widely recognised within the academic community. She presented her work at the 10th Annual Conference of Cognitive Science (2023) and delivered an oral presentation at the Judgment and Decision Making Conference 2023 hosted by the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.

Her empirical research investigating the magnitude-dependent hypothesis of loss aversion was also accepted for an oral presentation at the Behavioural Research in Economics Workshop – Economic Science Association, hosted by the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in 2023. The same research was selected for poster presentation at the Society for Judgment and Decision Making (SJDM) Annual Conference held in San Francisco, USA, in 2023.

At the international level, Dr. Khan presented a research poster at the International Convention of Psychological Science (ICPS) in Brussels, Belgium, in 2023, where she challenged conventional perspectives on loss aversion by highlighting the central role of magnitude in decision-making. In 2022, she was also selected to present a poster at the Annual Conference of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making held at the UC San Diego Rady School of Management, USA.

Beyond her doctoral research, Dr. Khan has actively presented her work at several leading national and international conferences. Her research titled Finding Effective Visualization Formats to Correct the Exponential Growth Bias and Increase Support for Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions to Combat COVID-19 was presented at the APS Annual Convention in Chicago, USA, and later at the 31st Annual Convention of the National Academy of Psychology (NAOP) hosted by the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in 2022. She also presented her work titled Preference for Using Predictions from Humans over Algorithms Goes Beyond Perceived Accuracy at the Society for Judgment and Decision Making Conference in 2022. Earlier, in 2019, she presented her research on Magnitude Judgment in the Numerical and Temporal Domains at the 29th Annual Convention of the National Academy of Psychology (NAOP) hosted by Pondicherry University.

ouroz.khan@ddn.upes.ac.in