Psychology Research Interests and Areas

Faculty Research Interests

* indicates faculty currently accepting students to the Experimental master's program 

Angela Bell headshot photo

Assistant Professor • bella21@wwu.eduFaculty Profile

*Angela Bell

Dr. Bell’s research is centered on social and cognitive biases that impact intergroup relationships and members of stigmatized groups. Her current work investigates what factors influence attributions and judgments of prejudice to address the question, “Why do people fail to recognize their own racism but seem capable of identifying racism in other people?” Specifically, she’s examining social comparison biases (e.g., the better-than-average effect) and self-evaluation motives (e.g., self-enhancement; the need to view oneself positively), and how they might inform people’s racism denials, one’s ability to detect and reduce racism in oneself, and support for anti-racist actions.

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Co-Director of the Clinical Mental Health Counseling Graduate Program, Professor • cbyrne@wwu.eduFaculty Profile

Christina Byrne

Psychological trauma, intimate partner violence.

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Assistant Professor Feng.Cao@wwu.eduFaculty Profile

Feng Cao

Information coming Spring 2024

Dr. Anna Ciao

Director of the Center for Cross-Cultural Research, Associate Professor •  Anna.Ciao@wwu.eduFaculty ProfileEating and Body Image Lab

*Anna Ciao

Dr. Ciao leads the Eating and Body Image research team, a group of undergraduate and graduate students who conduct research, run interventions, and engage in advocacy related to body liberation, food and body justice, and prevention of disordered eating. Dr. Ciao typically recruits new undergraduate students to the Eating and Body Image team each spring. Students are expected to begin working on research projects in the fall and continue through the academic year. Please email Dr. Ciao if you are interested in joining the team.

*Alex Czopp

My research attempts to examine the ways in which people can reduce the experiences and expressions of stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination within themselves and others. In our efforts to address such outcomes we examine the subtle ways in which these category-based processes may contribute to the perpetuation of intergroup anxiety and hostility (e.g., through “positive” stereotypes) and the not-so-subtle ways that people can actively induce changes in their social environments (e.g., though interpersonal confrontation).

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Associate Professor • Brianna.Delker@wwu.eduFaculty ProfileTHRIVE Lab

Brianna Delker

My research group lab, the THRIVE Lab, focuses on interpersonal violence (IPV), or physical, sexual, and psychological abuse perpetrated within relationships. When IPV occurs, it tends to happen in relationships with power imbalances, and to reflect gendered inequalities in society, along with intersecting forms of privilege and oppression on the basis of race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and so on. The lab takes a systemic perspective on trauma to better understand how individuals (survivors, harm-doers, bystanders) psychologically contend with structural forces that perpetuate IPV and invalidate survivors. In recent work, we address how and why it can be hard to "story" trauma in the midst of cultural stigma surrounding IPV. Ultimately, we wish for the lab's work to contribute to collective social efforts that affirm the dignity of survivors and support the pursuit of justice and healing.

 

Kevin Delucio

Information coming soon

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Associate Professor • Jennifer.Devenport@wwu.eduFaculty Profile

*Jennifer Devenport

Psychology and law; factors influencing juror decision-making such as expert psychological testimony, cross-examination, eyewitness identification evidence.

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Tina Du Rocher Schudlich

My research interests include interparental and family processes associated with developmental psychopathology in children. My current research investigates the development of normal and abnormal patterns of emotion regulation in response to high-conflict environments, and mechanisms that explain risk and resilience in these environments.  Understanding reciprocal relations between mood disorders and families’ well-being is another focus. I incorporate multi-method approaches to my research and am especially fond of behavioral observations of couples’ and families’ interactions.

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Associate Professor • Antonya.Gonzalez@wwu.eduFaculty Profile

Antonya Gonzalez

My research examines the cognitive biases and cultural influences that contribute to the development of intergroup bias and beliefs about inequality. I also investigate the consequences of these biases and beliefs for behavior in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, and potential interventions for bias and belief change.

*James Graham

My research interests are varied, but often focus broadly on the measurement of psychological variables in clinical assessment and research. My interests include psychometric meta-analyses, best practices in quantitative methods, the use of tabletop role-playing games in therapeutic settings, and adaptive processes in romantic relationships (or what goes “right” in relationships). In the past, this has included examining how couples spend their time together in growth-promoting or “self-expanding” activities, and how couples adapt successfully to stress.

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Director of the Behavioral Neuroscience Program, Professor • Jeffrey.Grimm@wwu.eduFaculty ProfileLab

Jeff Grimm

Animal models of drug taking and drug seeking, neurobiology of drug taking and drug seeking.

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Director of the Counseling Training Clinic, Professor •  Diana.Gruman@wwu.edu Faculty Profile

Diana Gruman

Dr. Gruman is interested in the investigation of risk and protective factors which influence the academic and social development of school-aged children. Her research work is focused on examining the efficacy and effectiveness of preventative interventions within the professional practice of school counseling. Examples include: the effects of non-cognitive skills interventions on academic behaviors and the impact of literacy-based guidance lessons on social skills development.

Back side of AIC on a sunny day

Assistant Professor • Rachel.Henesy@wwu.edu • Faculty Profile

Rachel Henesy

Dr. Henesy's research interests include LGBTQ affirmative counseling and advocacy, critical disability studies, and experiences of neurodivergent adults in counseling. 

Ira Hyman with his bike

Ira Hyman

Memory, cognitive psychology, social cognition.

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Kelly Jantzen

I use high-density electroencephalography and transcranial magnetic stimulation to investigate brain behavior relationships.  The goal of research in my lab is to uncover fundamental principles of cortical function that explain the rich repertoire of human behavior.  Work is focused on understanding action/perception relationships.

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Associate Professor • Josh.Kaplan@wwu.eduFaculty ProfileLab

Josh Kaplan

My lab studies the developmental consequences and therapeutic efficacy of cannabis in pre-clinical rodent models of disease and psychological disorders. To do this, we employ behavioral, genetic, pharmacological, and electrophysiology techniques coupled with novel passive inhalation methods that mimic human use patterns. We aim to optimize cannabis' medicinal benefits, minimize side effects, and better understand its impact on the developing brain.

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Professor Emeritus • Kingj33@wwu.eduFaculty Profile

Jeff King

Cross-cultural psychology. The impact of teaching cross-cultural psychology to undergraduate students on their personal worldview, cultural awareness, behavior, and personal philosophy; the impact of teaching cross-cultural counseling on the perceived cultural competence of counselors in training; assessing the extent to which cultural content and processes are included in psychology courses; assessing student perceptions of the amount of cultural content in their respective classes; protective and risk factors in the retention of Native American college students; how scientific-mindedness affects our ability to understand non-western cultural epistemologies; and Muscogee Nation traditional healing and mental health treatment.

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Professor • lehmanb2@wwu.eduFaculty ProfileLab

*Barbara Lehman

My research lab studies the momentary processes by which stress predicts emotional and physical health and well-being. My experience sampling research focuses on topics such as the cardiovascular and emotional consequences of routine social stress, and on the perpetuation of negative emotions over time. Recent experimental work includes tests of meditation interventions, investigations of social support, and manipulations of coping strategy. I also enjoy exploring topics related to research methodology and statistics, and typically include physical markers of health (such as ambulatory blood pressure, heart rate variability, and impedance cardiography) in my research.

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Associate Chair, Professor • lemmk@wwu.eduFaculty Profile

*Kristi Lemm

Dr. Lemm’s research interests are broadly in the area of social cognition, and span an eclectic range of topics including sport psychology, health psychology, prejudice and stereotyping, gender identity, cognitive development, and unconscious cognition.

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Senior Instructor • Julie.Major@wwu.eduFaculty Profile

Julie Major

Clinical psychology, behavioral medicine.

Brent Mallinckrodt

My primary research interest is understanding the client-counselor relationship from an adult attachment perspective. I am also interested in the counseling relationship as a catalyst for client change, adult attachment and romantic relationship satisfaction generally, affect regulation, and the coping and health benefits of social support.

Michi Matsukura photo with red plant

Assistant Professor • matsukm@wwu.eduFaculty ProfileLab

*Michi Matsukura

Because our visual system cannot process all incoming information in the world, mental function called “attention” enables us to select and process the information relevant to our goal, while filtering out other irrelevant information. That is, we live through this world by prioritizing some information over other information. My lab investigates how attention facilitates visual information processing in two contexts: (a) when the visual information remains in front of us—in the visual field (including scenes, during perceptual processing), and (b) when the visual information disappears from the visual field and no longer available for perceptual processing (during memory maintenance). Because I believe that the ultimate goal of conducting basic research is to apply that knowledge to solve real-world problems, recent lines of research have expanded to examine possible attentional selection mechanisms in evaluating the forms of data visualization before one makes a decision. The investigations in my lab employ both eye-tracking and non-eye-tracking methods. I enjoy working with students and researchers across different fields.

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Associate Professor • Jennifer.McCabe@wwu.eduFaculty ProfileLab

*Jennifer McCabe

Dr. McCabe's program of research broadly pertains to maternal-child health. As director of the EMBERcenter, Dr. McCabe studies pregnancy and postpartum mental health and its consequences for parenting and child development. The goal for her research is to develop and test interventions designed to decrease maternal distress during pregnancy, improve mother-infancy interactions, and promote child social-emotional development.

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*Kate McLean

My research centers on identity development in adolescence and emerging adulthood. I focus on how people recall and interpret their life experiences in narrative form. I view narrative identity development as both an individual and a socio-cultural process. In working on the individual level of analysis, I examine the meanings that individuals make of their most important memories, and how various patterns of narration are associated with personality and well-being. On the socio-cultural level of analysis I examine micro processes, such as how conversations with others impact how we story past events, as well as macro processes, such as the interactions with systems and structures that support and constrain the development of identity. In my research I try to better understand how each person's identity is at the same time unique to his or her own life story, as well as deeply integrated with the structural conditions of society.

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Associate Professor • riggsa2@wwu.eduFaculty ProfileLab

*Annie Riggs

My research explores the cognitive processes underlying children’s social generalization. I’m interested in how children generalize information acquired from their experiences with individuals to groups of people. My past and current research investigates this question from multiple angles, including children’s memory for and statistical learning of social information, how they learn from people portrayed in curricular materials and the role that norms play in early social cognition.

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Department Chair, Professor •  Jackie.Rose@wwu.eduFaculty ProfileLab

*Jackie Rose

Dr. Rose employs several approaches to gain insight into how neurons are uniquely adapted to modify themselves following a change in stimulus input. Research in the Rose lab utilizes the microscopic C. elegans model system to investigate processes at the single-neuron level within an intact animal model. Dr. Rose also employs dissociated hippocampal neuron cultures to observe protein redistribution and aggregation following induced activity. Taken together, these two research directions converge to reveal how alterations in ongoing signaling changes neurons and how these changes can be reflected in the whole, behaving animal.

*David Sattler

Social justice and environmental justice are at the core of Dr. Sattler’s scholarship and research. Social justice projects examine societal reactions to situations involving prejudice and discrimination. Environmental justice projects examine climate change risk perceptions and adaption and disaster response. Projects are conducted with Western world and understudied non-Western world samples, such as nomadic herders in Mongolia and survivors of climate change-related disasters in coastal areas of the Philippines, Fiji, and Tonga. Dr. Sattler established in International Tsunami Museum in Thailand.

Christie Scollon juggling

Director of the Experimental Psychology Graduate Program, Associate Professor • Christie.Scollon@wwu.eduFaculty ProfileLab

*Christie Scollon

Dr. Scollon studies subjective well-being, or what most people call 'happiness.' Under this broad umbrella, she is especially interested in cultural differences in happiness and emotions—for example, why some nations or cultures are happier than others. Some of her research has explored cultural differences in the valuing of emotions, cultural differences in the cognitive organization of emotion, and cultural differences in folk theories about the good life.

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Co-Director of the Clinical Mental Health Counseling Graduate Program, Associate Professor • Aaron.Smith@wwu.eduFaculty ProfileLab

Aaron Smith

My research focuses on the development of mental health standards for work with military populations, including mental health interventions intended to provide support for veterans from traditionally marginalized groups, veterans transitioning out of the military or home from deployment, survivors of combat-trauma or military sexual trauma (MST), intimate partner violence (IPV), substance use, and other pertinent mental health concerns. I also conduct research on posttraumatic growth from a meaning-based, humanistic perspective with veteran survivors of trauma.

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Director of the School Counseling Graduate Program, Associate Professor • Shaun.Sowell@wwu.eduFaculty Profile

Shaun Sowell

Investigation of professional school counselors’ ability to use advocacy as a means to eliminate burnout and support self-care and wellness practices, using/developing best practices in training and preparing school counselors to work with diverse and ever changing student populations, the role of the school counselor in leveling inequities in education, and school counselor professional identity development.

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Associate Professor • Larry.Symons@wwu.eduFaculty Profile

Larry Symons

My research focuses on perceptual psychology. I study the perception of faces, particularly the effects of image inversion and processes involved in the holistic vs. piecemeal perception of parts of the face. I am also interested in stimulus factors that affect our ability to perceive direction of gaze. As well, I have studied illusions of motion. I am also interested in brain responses to these stimuli.

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Associate Professor • villica@wwu.eduFaculty Profile

Adrian Villicana

Dr. Villicana’s research is generally in identity, social cognition, and social issues. He considers himself an identity researcher where he investigates how our social identities (like race, gender, sexual orientation) influence our thoughts, behaviors, and interpersonal as well as intergroup interactions. Moreover, a critical aspect of his approach is to consider intersections of identities. He applies the latter perspective to his work to contribute to the dismantling of the androcentric, ethnocentric, and heterocentric knowledge that is primarily represented in the psychological literature.  Relevant Keywords to Describe Research Interests: identity, prejudice, stereotyping, discrimination, social perception, intergroup relations, allyship, intersectionality, perceptions of neurodivergence (newer interest)

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Assistant Professor • Michael.Warren2@wwu.eduFaculty Profile

*Michael Warren

My positive psychology research builds understanding of how young people become mindful and inclusive individuals. Rather than viewing mindfulness as a quality that exists exclusively 'in the head' and needs to be trained through meditation, I am interested in how mindfulness emerges from the social fabric of adolescents' everyday lives (e.g., through interaction patterns with peers and teachers). My lab also examines how moral virtues such as compassion and fairness develop, and how individuals can apply the virtues that they already value in the service of becoming better allies toward socially marginalized outgroups (e.g., people of color, poor and working-class individuals, LGBTQIA+ individuals).

Faculty Research Areas

Clinical Psychology 

Christina Byrne, Anna Ciao, Brianna Delker, Tina Du Rocher Schudlich, James Graham, Jennifer McCabe

Counseling Psychology

Christina Byrne, Anna Ciao, Tina Du Rocher Schudlich, James Graham, Diana Gruman, Brent Mallinckrodt, Jennifer McCabe, Aaron Smith

Cross-Cultural Psychology

Angela Bell, Alex Czopp, Jennifer Devenport, James Graham, Jeff King, Barbara Lehman, Kate McLean, David Sattler, Christie Scollon, Aaron Smith, Adrian Villicana, Michael Warren

Developmental Psychology

Tina Du Rocher Schudlich, Antonya Gonzalez, Diana Gruman, Jennifer McCabe, Kate McLean, Annie Riggs, Michael Warren 

Learning, Cognition, and Perception

Ira Hyman, Michi Matsukura, Annie Riggs, Larry Symons

Neuroscience

Jeff Grimm, Kelly Jantzen, Josh Kaplan, Michi Matsukura, Jackie Rose

School Counseling

Diana Gruman, Shaun Sowell

Social Psychology

Angela Bell, Alex Czopp, Jennifer Devenport, Barbara Lehman, Kristi Lemm, David Sattler, Christie Scollon, Adrian Villicana, Michael Warren