lab director | graduate students | thesis students | research team
Igor Grossmann, MSc, PhD
Lab director
Igor Grossmann is a social-cognitive scientist studying sound judgment and wisdom across cultures. His work utilizes methods at the intersection of big data analytics, psychophysiology, diary surveys, and experiments. Grossmann studied at the University of Freiburg and at the University of Michigan, where he received his Ph.D. in 2012. He is currently an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Waterloo, Canada. His work has been published in such outlets as PNAS, Proceedings of the Royal Academy: B, Perspectives on Psychological Science, Psychological Science, Journal of Experimental Psychology, and Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. His contributions have been recognized through numerous awards (e.g., SAGE Young Scholar award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science, APA Dissertation Award, USERN Prize for Social Sciences). Grossmann has been an Associate Editor of the journal Emotion, is currently an Associate Editor in SPPS, and co-hosts the “On Wisdom Podcast,” disseminating scientific insights from psychology, philosophy and cognitive sciences to the general public.
Email: igrossma@uwaterloo.ca
Abdo Elnakouri
Graduate student
Abdo is a third year graduate student in social psychology. Broadly, he is interested in how self-regulation interacts with ideology and group processes. Abdo and Igor Grossmann are examining how ecological threats might lead to a widened scope of what is considered immoral. In another line of research with Ian McGregor, Abdo and Igor are exploring what leads to wisdom in religious contexts. When he's not working, Abdo enjoys traveling, learning, listening to music, and spending time with friends and family.
Email: abdo.elnakouri@uwaterloo.ca
Ronda Lo
Graduate student
Ronda Lo is a visiting PhD student from York University. She is broadly interested in how long-term sociocultural experiences (e.g., culture, religion, familial experiences, minority experiences) can fundamentally shape cognitive processes and interact with biology. She is currently working on a project with Igor Grossmann and Richard Eibach on cultural variation in lay beliefs about quantum physics.
Email: rondalo@yorku.ca
Konstantyn Sharpinskyi
Graduate student
Konstantyn is a 2nd year PhD student. He is broadly interested in open science, research methods and statistics. In the past he was involved in a number of projects on diverse topics such as: basic motivation, stress, forecasting, and attribution and meaning (among others). His current work is focused on comparing the replicability of preregistered (versus non-preregistered) studies. In his free time he loves to play the piano, play squash, and socialize with friends.
Email: ksharpin@uwaterloo.ca
Katherine Macdonald
Honours thesis student
Katherine is a 4th year Psychology, honours thesis student study the effects the COVID-19 pandemic has had on mental health, specifically life satisfaction. After graduation, Katherine plans on pursuing a graduate degree in clinical psychology.
Email: ke7macdonald@uwaterloo.ca
Jennifer Xie
Honours thesis student
Jennifer is 5th year Joint Honours Science and Psychology Arts student, interested in the processing of scientific information and scientific reasoning, and how that relates to dialectical thinking
Email: jennifer.xie@uwaterloo.ca
Amanda Pileggi
Honours thesis student
Amanda is investigating questions pertaining to lay understandings of reasonable and rational standards of decision making.
Email: amanda.pileggi@uwaterloo.ca
Olha Mendelenko
Research assistant
Olha is an undergraduate student exploring the way leaders can repair relationships with subordinates following justice violations
Email: omendelenko@uwaterloo.ca
Hansika Kumar
Research assistant
Hansika is a fourth year Psych Major at university of Waterloo interested in the analysis of cause & effect relationships across various streams of psychology, particularly social and organizational. Her main aim in future is to investigate how easily perception can be influenced by our environment, whether natural or man-made.
Email: hansika.kumar@uwaterloo.ca
Mishel Alexandrovsky
Research assistant
Mishel is passionate about mentoring, advocating for mental health, and psychology research, wisdom and wise reasoning especially.
Email: mishel.alexandrovsky@mail.utoronto.ca
Sahara Kular
Research assistant
Sahara is a research assistant with a strong interest in forensic psychology.
Email: sikular@uwaterloo.ca