Greg Trevors received his PhD from McGill University in 2016 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Minnesota. He is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of South Carolina where he studies cognitive and emotional processes in revising misconceptions about important socio-scientific issues, such as vaccines, immigration, and climate change. In this program of research, he has explored learner factors, mechanisms, and boundary conditions that play a role in the success or failure of corrections. These findings have contributed to theoretical knowledge about how, why, and for whom corrections may effectively update misconceptions about controversial topics.
Trevors has shown tremendous research productivity coupled with a strong capacity to secure external funding. He routinely publishes his work in highly ranked venues (e.g., Contemporary Educational Psychology, Learning and Instruction, Educational Researcher) and prestigious edited volumes, including an entry on belief change in the forthcoming APA Handbook of Educational Psychology. His research has recently been supported by a National Science Foundation RAPID grant to develop a new digital game that employs cognitive principles of belief change to combat misconceptions about COVID-19. The potential and quality of his work has been recognized by local, federal, and international organizations, from which he has been awarded numerous prestigious fellowships, including the American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Currently, Trevors is investigating individual and cultural differences that may be related to misinformation about vaccinations. His research efforts and products are prime examples of how research agendas in different disciplines can be synergistically blended to advance our understanding of the complex nature of learning. His triangulation of interdisciplinary methods demonstrated in his past and planned research represents ambitious, innovative, and achievable psychometric advancements. With respect to educational practice, findings from his research address real-world challenges and may serve to inform the design of sound educational interventions. These outcomes derived from Trevors research will likely provide fruitful new avenues of inquiry for the field.
Trevor’s research on belief change has been highlighted by several media outlets, including The Globe and Mail, The Conversation, AAAS Eureka Alert, and Medscape. Two journal articles stemming from this work have ranked in the top 5% of quality and quantity of online attention compared to 16,000,000 research outputs tracked by Altmetric. Interviews about these findings have also appeared in popular press and in distributed by the Vox Media Podcast Network. Additionally, in his collaborations with non-profit organizations, he is working to translate theoretical and empirical research on belief change to applied, real world problems.
