Mel Rutherford

Mel Rutherford is a Professor in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour within the Faculty of Science at McMaster University. Her research focuses on experimental psychology motivated by evolutionary theory, particularly examining Social Perception and Social Perceptual Development.

Dr. Rutherford earned her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 2000, following a BA in Psychology and Biology from Yale University in 1992. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Denver from 2000-2002.

Her research interests span Cognitive Development, Evolutionary Psychology, Social Perception, Animacy Perception, and Face Processing, with particular emphasis on how these processes develop in children and are affected in Autism Spectrum Disorder. She has published extensively on visual aftereffects, religious bias in face perception, essentialism, and developmental trajectories in social cognition.

Analysis of her recent publications (2021-2025) reveals a strong focus on religious bias in face perception, with multiple studies examining how religious labels affect visual adaptation to Christian and Muslim faces. Her work also explores essentialism in social categories, developmental trajectories in facial expression perception, and biological motion perception in autism through meta-analysis. Her research consistently bridges evolutionary theory with experimental psychology methodologies.

Dr. Rutherford has taught numerous courses including Essentials of Developmental Psychology (PSYCH 3GG3), PNB Tutorials (PNB 2XT0), Advanced Topics in Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour (PSYCH 741), Contemporary Problems in Psychology (PSYCH 720A), and Inferential Statistics and Research Methods (PNB 3XE3) across multiple years from 2017-2024.

She leads the Rutherford Lab at McMaster University, which focuses on experimental psychology motivated by evolutionary theory, specifically examining questions of Social Perception and Social Perceptual Development. Her work has been widely cited across academic platforms, social media, and news outlets, with numerous publications appearing in high-impact journals like Journal of Vision, Frontiers in Psychology, and Developmental Psychology.