Kristina Olson

Kristina Olson is a Professor at Princeton University where she serves as Director of Undergraduate Studies. She leads the Human Diversity Lab, conducting groundbreaking research on gender development in children, with particular focus on transgender and gender-diverse youth. Her work bridges developmental, social, clinical, and cognitive psychology to understand identity formation processes from early childhood through adolescence.

Dr. Olson's research primarily examines how children develop their sense of self and perceptions of social groups, with special attention to gender identity development in transgender children. Her work has established that transgender children show gender development patterns that strongly align with their current gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth, demonstrating remarkable coherence across measures of identity, preferences, and behaviors. Her research methodology combines longitudinal studies with experimental approaches to investigate gender development, racial attitudes, and social cognition in diverse youth populations.

Her publication record shows consistent output in top journals with a clear trajectory toward increasingly sophisticated investigations of gender identity development, social cognition in gender-diverse children, and mental health outcomes. Recent work has expanded to examine community connectedness, identity importance, and political activism among transgender youth, as well as refining assessment tools for psychological wellbeing in this population.

• 2025 Graduate Mentoring Award recognizing excellence in graduate student supervision

Dr. Olson has secured significant research funding from the National Science Foundation (Grants BCS-1523632, SMA-1837857, BCS-1715068) and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (Grant HD092347), as well as support from the Arcus Foundation. Her lab has produced numerous high-impact publications, including the landmark 2019 PNAS paper 'Similarity in transgender and cisgender children's gender development' which represents the largest study of transgender children's gender development to date. The Human Diversity Lab continues to advance understanding of gender development through innovative research that informs both theoretical models and clinical practice.