The International Neuroeconomics Institute (INI) is a neuroscience research lab housed in the Department of Psychology at San José State University under Cheryl Chancellor-Freeland, Ph.D. Broadly speaking, the lab aims to measure the effects of stress by guiding participants through a stress inducing task and explore mitigating factors of including lifestyles.

Through the INI Lab, Marc has learned how to gather autonomic physiological data through heart rate variability, and soon saliva sampling. These are indicators that measure the ammount of stress that participants may experience. Currently, Marc is assisting a project that studies the relationship between COVID-19 stress and parasocial relationships, which is defined as a one-sided relationship between a person and a media personality or fictional character. This project has recently been acceped to be presented at the upcoming Western Psychological Association 2025 Research Conference in Las Vegas.