Cristine Legare is an associate professor of psychology and the director of the Cognition, Culture, and Development Lab at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research examines the interplay of the universal human mind and the variations of human culture to address fundamental questions about cognitive evolution and cultural learning. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in southern Africa, and is currently doing research in Brazil, China, and Vanuatu (a Melanesian archipelago), using both experimental and ethnographic methods.

Her research and training reflect her commitment to an interdisciplinary approach to the study of cognitive development. She draws on insights from cognitive, cultural, developmental, educational, and evolutionary psychology as well as cognitive and evolutionary anthropology and philosophy, with the aim of facilitating cross-fertilization within and across these disciplines. Dr. Legare's research has been published in a number of journals, including Child Development, Developmental Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Cognition, and Evolution and Human Behavior, and has been covered by a range of media outlets, including NPR, Nature, The Wall Street Journal, andScientific American. Her research has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (UK), the National Science Foundation, the McDonnell Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, and the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent). Dr. Legare was recognized with the 2015 APS Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions and the 2016 APA Boyd McCandless Award for her research on the evolution and ontogeny of cognition and culture.