Dr Lala Muradova (PhD, 2021) is a Postdoctoral Researcher at FuJo. She obtained her PhD in Social Sciences from KU Leuven in March 2021. Her PhD thesis, awarded with the honorary mention of the Best Political Communication Dissertation Award of the APSA & ICA Political Communication Divisions 2021, combined survey and lab experiments with observational and qualitative data to gain insight into the cognitive and affective processes underlying individuals’ political opinion formation. 

Her primary research interests lie at the intersection of political communication, political psychology, and behavior. In her first research stream, she investigates the role of intergroup contact in deliberative settings in citizens’ political opinion formation and how emotions come into play in these processes.  In her second research stream, she explores the potential of peer correction to correct people’s misinformation and transform their attitudes and behavior on climate change and COVID-19. Additionally, she is also interested in experimental methodology, and comparative authoritarianism.

Lala has held visiting positions at Nuffield College, University of Oxford, UK (2018), University of Temple, US (2020), University of Canberra, Australia (2020), University of Barcelona, Spain (2021) and Esade Business School, Spain (2021). In 2019, she was awarded the Best Paper of the Democratic Innovations Section at the 2019 General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). She holds a Research Master (MRes) in Political Science from Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona, Spain and BA (Hons) in European Studies, International Relations and Politics from the Azerbaijani University of Languages.