Nilam Ram

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  5. Nilam Ram

Principal Investigator

Professor of Communications & Psychology

Stanford University

Faculty Profile

Nilam’s (he/him/his) research grows out of a history of studying change. After completing his undergraduate study of economics, he worked as a currency trader, frantically tracking and trying to predict the movement of world markets as they jerked up, down and sideways. Later, he moved on to the study of human movement and psychological processes – with a specialization in longitudinal research methodology. Generally, Nilam studies how short-term changes (e.g., processes such as learning, information processing, emotion regulation, etc.) develop across the life span, and how longitudinal study designs contribute to generation of new knowledge. He is developing a variety of study paradigms that use recent developments in data science and the intensive data streams arriving from social media, mobile sensors, and smartphones to study behavioral change at multiple time scales.

Recent Publications

Cho, M.-J., Reeves, B., Ram, N., & Robinson, T. N. (2023). Balancing media selections over time: Emotional valence, informational content, and time intervals of use. Heliyon, 9(12). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e22816
Felt, J. M., Yusupov, N., Harrington, K. D., Fietz, J., Zhang, Z. “Zach,” Sliwinski, M. J., Ram, N., O’Donnell, K. J., Meaney, M. J., Putnam, F. W., Noll, J. G., Binder, E. B., & Shenk, C. E. (2023). Epigenetic age acceleration as a biomarker for impaired cognitive abilities in adulthood following early life adversity and psychiatric disorders. Neurobiology of Stress, 27, 100577. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ynstr.2023.100577
Solomon, D. H., Brinberg, M., Bodie, G., Jones, S., & Ram, N. (2023). A Dynamic Dyadic Systems Perspective on Interpersonal Conversation. Communication Methods and Measures. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19312458.2023.2237404
Ram, N., Haber, N., Robinson, T. N., & Reeves, B. (2023). Binding the Person-Specific Approach to Modern AI in the Human Screenome Project: Moving past Generalizability to Transferability. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 0(0), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1080/00273171.2023.2229305
Brinberg, M., Ram, N., Wang, J., Sundar, S. S., Cummings, J. J., Yeykelis, L., & Reeves, B. (2023). Screenertia: Understanding “Stickiness” of Media Through Temporal Changes in Screen Use. Communication Research, 50(5), 535–560. https://doi.org/10.1177/00936502211062778
Blech, C., Reimann, D., Ram, N., & Gaschler, R. (2023). Is Detecting Discontinuity Difficult? Evidence from the Visual Trend Classification of Scatterplots. The American Journal of Psychology, 136(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.5406/19398298.136.1.01
Gerstorf, D., Schilling, O. K., Pauly, T., Katzorreck, M., Lücke, A. J., Wahl, H.-W., Kunzmann, U., Hoppmann, C. A., & Ram, N. (2023). Long-term aging trajectories of the accumulation of disease burden as predictors of daily affect dynamics and stressor reactivity. Psychology and Aging, No Pagination Specified-No Pagination Specified. https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000779
Liu, C., Neiderhiser, J. M., Ram, N., Leve, L. D., Shaw, D. S., Natsuaki, M. N., Reiss, D., & Ganiban, J. M. (2023). Modeling BMI z score lability during childhood as a function of child temperament and genetic risk for obesity. Obesity, 31(10), 2593–2602. https://doi.org/10.1002/oby.23867
Elmer, T., van Duijn, M. A. J., Ram, N., & Bringmann, L. F. (2023). Modeling categorical time-to-event data: The example of social interaction dynamics captured with event-contingent experience sampling methods. Psychological Methods, No Pagination Specified-No Pagination Specified. https://doi.org/10.1037/met0000598
Brandt, N. D., Drewelies, J., Willis, S. L., Schaie, K. W., Ram, N., Gerstorf, D., & Wagner, J. (2023). Beyond Big Five trait domains: Stability and change in personality facets across midlife and old age. Journal of Personality, 91(5), 1171–1188. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12791

Nilam’s News & Updates