Jaimie Krems, an assistant professor of psychology, has received a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation to support research on friendship. She will receive roughly $599,000 over five years to investigate how people solve the challenges of friending — like finding, making and keeping friends.
Her work is primarily concerned with filling gaps in the knowledge of how friendship works by explicating the design of friendship psychology. This work begins from the premise that having friends — and enjoying the related benefits — requires people to solve multiple distinct challenges. She was named a 2023 Rising Star by the Human Behavior and Evolution Society partially for her work on friendship.
Krems received her doctorate in social psychology at Arizona State University and was an assistant professor of psychology at Oklahoma State University, where she co-founded the Oklahoma Center for Evolutionary Analysis. She joined UCLA in 2023.
The NSF Faculty Early Career Development Program awards are the most prestigious grants presented to junior faculty who exemplify the teacher–scholar role, excelling in their research as well as mentorship and teaching. These awards recognize awardees’ potential to become leaders in their field.
