Alexander Todorov

Alexander Todorov studies how people perceive, evaluate, and make sense of the social world. His research uses multiple methods: from behavioral experiments to building of computational models.

Todorov’s research has appeared in a variety of publications, including Science, Nature Human Behavior, PNAS, Psychological Science, and Journal of Neuroscience. Media coverage of his research has spanned internationally. Amongst the outlets in the US that have covered his research are PBS, NBC Today Show, NPR, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He has been awarded the 2008 SAGE Young Scholar Award from the Foundation for Personality and Social Psychology, a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the 2019 Career Trajectory Award from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology. His most recent book publication is Face Value: The Irresistible Influence of First Impressions. Prior to joining Booth in 2020, Todorov was a professor of psychology at Princeton University.

Todorov earned a PhD from New York University. Additionally, he holds a Research MA from the New School for Social Research, and a BA from Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” in Sofia, Bulgaria. During his studies, he was a visiting researcher in the Department of Experimental Psychology at Oxford University.