Erica J. Yoon

I am a learning scientist and psychology instructor interested in how people learn, communicate, and reason. I currently teach psychology at College of San Mateo.

Before this, I served as Teaching Coordinator for Symsys 1: Minds and Machines in Stanford’s Symbolic Systems program, where I coordinated instructional teams across psychology, computer science, linguistics, and philosophy. In that role I helped redesign the course into a hybrid flipped-classroom model that combined asynchronous lectures, discussion-based learning, and project-based exploration of topics related to cognition and artificial intelligence.

I completed my PhD in the Department of Psychology at Stanford University, where I worked with Dr. Michael C. Frank in Language and Cognition Lab. My research examines how adults and children interpret speakers’ intentions in communication. In particular, I study how people infer the goals behind language—such as informing others, maintaining social relationships, or presenting oneself positively—using polite language as a case study.