Luka Lucic

Luka Lucić is Associate Professor at the Department of Social Science and Cultural Studies. He conducts research that explores the effects of radical change – such as migration, war, and urban destruction, on the socio-cognitive development of young people. His work shows that the consequences of growing up during migrations, wars, or political instabilities are not solely trauma and emotional scars but that knowledge and experience gained in the contexts of radical change dynamically influence the cognitive growth of young people. In addition to scholarly research publications, Luka’s research has been featured in the New York Times, Radio Kingston, Nature, The Architect’s Newspaper, Radio Free Europe, Göteborgs-Posten, The Future Architecture Platform, and Pratt News.

Together with Pratt Institute’s School of Design, during 2018-2019, Dr. Lucić designed and implemented Kingston Creative Exchange, a project funded by The Martin Architecture and Design Workshop (MADWORKSHOP). Through adaptive reuse, this project created a physical space in Kingston, New York, for the exchange of design practices between the local artisans and young people. Employing the activity theory approach, Dr. Lucić developed a curriculum entitled The Syntax of Design, which integrated mold-casting, slip-casted ceramics, and soap production together with interior and communication design. The curriculum was successfully implemented by Pratt’s interdisciplinary design team, local artisans, and Kingston High School students who often live in areas with a high concentration of creative artistic capital but are frequently unable to access it. Rather than solely interpreting this social disbalance, the point of the curriculum was to change it. 

Dr. Lucić also serves as a visiting professor at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Media and Communications (FMK) in Belgrade, Serbia, where he primarily contributes to qualitative methodology courses. Together with FMK Knjige Luka is currently editing a series of influential books in sociocultural psychology written in Russian and English which will soon appear for the first time translated into  Serbian.

He served on the Board of Directors of the Jean Piaget Society from 2017 until 2021. In 2014 Luka worked to establish the Psychology Minor at Pratt Institute and served as the program coordinator until 2019. Between 2017 and 2019, he was Associate Director of the Global South Center at Pratt Institute. During the 2015/16 academic year, Dr. Lucić was a visiting faculty in the Department of Psychology at Bogaziçi University in Istanbul, Turkey, where he taught courses in Cultural Psychology. Before joining Pratt Institute, Luka served as an Adult Literacy Fellow at New York City’s Office of the Mayor, taught psychology at Hunter College, and worked as a Lecturer in the History of Immigration at the New-York Historical Society.

B.A., The City College of New York; M.Phil., Ph.D., The Graduate Center, CUNY.

Lucić, L. (forthcoming). Education as Collective Resistance: Sarajevo Schools During Military Siege. Cambridge University Press.

Lucić, L. (forthcoming). ‘Not everyone wants to go to Europe’: Exploring Language-Based Thought Processes Among Syrian Refugees in Istanbul.

Lucić, L. & Fløgstad G. (2024). Beyond trauma narratives: How the military siege of Sarajevo shaped stories told in the aftermath. In M. Dege & I. Strasser (Eds.), Narrative in Crisis: Reflections from the Limits of Storytelling. Oxford University Press.

Lucić, L. (2023). Bewilderment and Illumination: Language is a tool to understand the migrant experience. In M. Gemignani, Y. Hernández Albujar & J. Sládková (Eds.), Migrant scholars researching migration: Reflexivity, subjectivity, and biographical research. Routledge.

O’Connell, C. & Lucić, L. (2021). An Informal Education Intervention in Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic: Homework mentorships in a Berlin refugee shelter. Human Arenas. (4) 616–631.

Lucić, L. (2021). War Schools: Teaching innovations implemented across makeshift educational spaces during the military siege of Sarajevo. Pedagogy, Culture & Society. 29 (4), 573-592.

Lucić, L. & Liharska, L. (2019). ‘They are thirsty for internet more than water’: Learning and cognitive development among young refugees undergoing migration. In Z. Yan (Ed.) Analyzing Human Behavior in Cyberspace.

Lucić, L. & Bridges, E. (2018). Ecological landscape in narrative thought: How siege survivors employ prepositions to make sense of war-torn Sarajevo. Narrative Inquiry. 28 (2), 346-372.

Lucić, L. (2018). The role of culture in times of trouble. [Review of the book Cultural-Existential Psychology: The Role of Culture in Suffering and Threat, by Daniel Sullivan]. Contemporary Sociology. 47 (5), 632-634.

Lucić, L., Khan, A., & Daiute, C. (2017). Can writing be used to study and improve the socio-cognitive functioning of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia? European Psychiatry. 41, S821.

Lucić, L. (2016). Developmental affordances of war-torn landscapes: Growing up in Sarajevo under siege. Human Development. 59:81-106.

Lucić, L. (2016). The crisis of geographical imagination in Turkey. Metropolitics. June, 20.

Lucić, L. (2016). Narrative approaches to conflict resolution across technologically mediated landscapes. International Journal of Cyber Behavior, Psychology & Learning. 6 (1), 42-59.

Lucić, L. (2016). Changing landscapes, changing narratives: Socio-cultural approach for teaching global migrants. Pedagogy, Culture & Society. 24 (2), 221-237.

Lucić, L. (2016). The boys of Sarajevo’s war tunnel. Metropolitics. January, 12.

Lucić, L., Daiute, C., Khan, A. (2015). Narrative exploration of social cognition in adults hospitalized due to symptoms of schizophrenia. European Psychiatry, 30, S1, P1282.

Lucić, L., Khan A., Liharska, L., Rothman, B. (2015). What can we learn about psycho-social functioning of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia from standardized patients? European Psychiatry 30, P1286.

Lucić, L., Khan, A., Rothman, B., Gao, L., Peterson, T., & Opler, M. (2014). How to measure social cognition in schizophrenia? A comparison of measurements. European Psychiatry, 29, S1.

Lucić, L., Khan, A., Daiute, C. (2014). “I am here because the voices came back…”: Narrative exploration of the function of concept formation in adults hospitalized due to symptoms of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Research, 153, S341.

Lucić, L. (2013). Use of evaluative devices by youth for sense-making of culturally diverse interactions. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 37, 434-449.

Khan A., Lindenmayer J.P., Opler M., Yavorsky C., Rothman B., Lucić L. (2013). A new integrated negative symptom structure of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) in schizophrenia using item response analysis. Schizophrenia Research, 150(1):185-96.

Lucić, L., Rothman B., Khan A., Yavorsky C., Opler, M. (2013). Preliminary findings of the Dynamic Social Cognition Battery (DSCB): A comprehensive toolkit for social cognition. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 39, S239.

Khan, A., Yavorsky, C., Liechti, S., Opler, M., Rothman B., Lucić, L., DiClemente, G., Jovic, S., Inada, T., Yang, L. (2013). A Rasch model to test the cross-cultural validity in the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) across six geo-cultural Groups. BMC Psychology, 1:5.

Daiute, C. & Lucić, L. (2010). Situated cultural development among youth separated by war. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 34, 615-628.

Bender, H., Ruiz-Navarro, P., Echavarria, M., Feigina, I., Gaytan, F., & Lucić, L. (2010). Immigration and education. in C. Clauss-Ehlers (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Cross-Cultural School Psychology. NJ: Springer.

Milstein, G., & Lucić, L. (2004). Young immigrants: A psychosocial development perspective. ENCOUNTER: Education for Meaning and Social Justice, 17(3), 24-29.