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Michael HallquistProfessor
BIOGRAPHY
Michael Hallquist is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Emory University. His research program integrates transdiagnostic dimensional models, cognitive neuroscience, and computational psychiatry to understand how learning, decision-making, and emotion shape individual differences in personality and psychopathology. To support this work, he also develops and applies statistical and computational methods for psychometric, behavioral, and neuroimaging data, including latent variable and reinforcement learning models. Before joining Emory University in 2026, he was a Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He received his B.A. in psychology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2002, earned his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from SUNY–Binghamton in 2009, and completed his clinical internship and postdoctoral training at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
research
Research Interests
My lab seeks to understand why people differ in the ways they learn from experience, make decisions, experience emotions, and navigate social relationships—and how these differences affect mental health. Rather than focusing on single psychiatric diagnoses, we study transdiagnostic dimensions of personality and psychopathology that cut across traditional categories. Our goal is to explain individual differences in these dimensions in terms of the neurocomputational processes that give rise to them.
To address these questions, we integrate computational models of learning and decision-making with functional neuroimaging, intensive longitudinal assessment, psychophysiology, and advanced statistical modeling. Current projects investigate personality pathology, mood dynamics, social affiliation, cooperation, and Pavlovian-instrumental interactions.
