Starting at Boise State University in 2022, Dr. Jessica Ayers is an Assistant Professor with the Department of Psychological Science and the Director of the APE Lab. She earned a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Arizona State University, an M.A. in Psychology and a B.A. in Psychology and Anthropology both from California State University, Fullerton.  Dr. Ayers studies behavioral manifestations of genetic conflict, or how the genes we inherit from our parents fight with each other and the impact this conflict has on our behavior.  Further research interests include genetic conflict in the womb, such as when material and fetal interests may not always be aligned; genetic conflict in the family and investigating how familial relationships have different amounts of cooperation and conflict as a result of differences in genetic relatedness; and the rules of friendship and friendship maintenance, in which to understand how people become friends, and how this might be influenced by the underlying differences in genetic conflict.