People Profiles

lab director  | postdocgraduate students | thesis students | research team


Igor Grossmann, MSc, PhD

Lab director

Photo of Dr. Igor Grossmann in front of a pink brick backdrop

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 Nature Human Behaviour, Science Advances, 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 journals Emotion and SPPS, and he is currently Editor-in-Chief of Psychological Inquiry—the premier outlet for theory papers in psychological science. In his free time, he co-hosts the “On Wisdom Podcast,” disseminating scientific insights from psychology, philosophy and cognitive sciences to the general public.

Email: igrossma@uwaterloo.ca

CV [link]


Maksim Rudnev

Postdoc

ethan-meyers

Maksim Rudnev is a postdoc researcher at the Lab. He studies basic values and moral attitudes in a comparative perspective, as well as methods required for that, namely structural equation, mixture, and multilevel modeling. 

Email: maksim.rudnev@uwaterloo.ca


Kamil Izydorczak

Postdoc

Kamil

Kamil is a postdoctoral researcher involved in the "Forecasting Human Welfare" project. He is a social psychologist. His main interests are bias in interpersonal and intergroup comparisons. He is also skilled in data analysis and visualization. He is an avid proponent and practitioner of open science, as well as an aficionado of meta-science and philosophy of science. As part of the Forecasting Human Welfare project, he is investigating the role of political polarization in people's views of the future of the world. He loves spending time with his family, ideally playing games (RPG, video, board games, even sports ;)). In addition, his long-time passion is music, especially playing his first love: the guitar.

Email: kizydorczak@swps.edu.pl


Ethan Meyers

Graduate student

ethan-meyers

Ethan is a fourth year PhD student in cognitive psychology. He is interested in how people work. He is especially interested in the choices they make and how they think about those choices. With Igor Grossmann and Richard Eibach, Ethan has examined how lay people define what "good judgment" means. Ethan also generally enjoys the act of thinking, especially thinking about the philosophy of science of which he has many opinions. For instance, Ethan thinks that the psychological literature is so polluted that mostly everyone would be better off ignoring it completely. He thinks the scientific pursuit would be best served by abolishing peer review, abolishing academic publishing (i.e., move to a "pre-print" only model), and greatly reducing its reliance on government/ public funding. Ethan has become increasingly concerned that Academics have escaped from their ivory tower to share their ideas with the world. He thinks that the academics are much safer in their ivory towers, not for their own protection but everyone else's. 

Email: emeyers@uwaterloo.ca


Alexander Walker

Alumnus

alexander-walker

Alex is doing his post-doc at Brown. He is a candidate in Cognitive psychology studying moral inferences, moral narratives, and political polarization. His primary work investigates how strategic and self-serving narratives—for example, those utilizing euphemistic terms (e.g., enhanced interrogation)—bias peoples’ moral impressions. He is interested in how divergent moral narratives (e.g., those existing across political divides) shape peoples’ moral behaviors and impressions and contribute to our increasingly polarized societies. Additionally, Alex and Igor Grossmann have examined the role perceptions of an individual’s predictability play in judgments of their moral character. Currently, he is working with members of the Wisdom and Culture Lab on a multi-year project assessing the psychological impact of forecasting tournaments.

Email: a24walker@uwaterloo.ca     Website: alexandercwalker.com


Niyati Kachhiya Patel

Graduate student

Niyati-Kachhiya-Patel

Niyati is a first-year master's student in social psychology. Broadly, she is interested in many topics such as wisdom, well-being, and mindfulness. She is specifically interested in training wisdom and examining whether wisdom helps individuals navigate life changes more effectively. In her spare time, she likes to read, watch movies, and pursue creative hobbies like dancing, writing poetry and blogs.

Email: nkachhiyapatel@uwaterloo.ca


Jackson Smith

Graduate student

jackson-smith

Jackson is a PhD Candidate in Clinical Psychology. He studies the psychological and relational consequences of (childhood) trauma and adversity, family processes in contexts of stress, and multisystemic resilience. He is particularly interested in applying a complex systems framework to understand psychological and relational processes using psychometric network analysis. Jackson’s work with Igor Grossmann examines the relationship between wisdom and adversity at multiple levels of analysis.

Email: jackson.smith@uwaterloo.ca


Molly Matthews

Lab manager

Molly Matthews

Molly is a fourth-year undergraduate student pursuing her BSc in Psychology with a Biology minor at the University of Waterloo. She is passionate about many areas of psychology research and also has an interest in statistics and research methods. Molly also enjoys playing sports and watching true crime documentaries.

Email: m8matthe@uwaterloo.ca


Alexander Stavropoulos 

Research Assistant

Alex S

Alex is a fourth-year biomedical science student studying at the University of Waterloo. He loves exploring the applications of science and technology in improving wellness and productivity. He is fascinated by the pursuit of understanding wisdom and is interested in finding how we can apply artificial intelligence to help us solve the problems of today.

Email: a2stavropoulos@uwaterloo.ca


Mariam Mazen

Research Assistant

mariam-mazen

Mariam is a fourth-year Honours Life Science - Psychology student with a minor in Biology. She has a wide range of research interests within the Clinical and Social psychology domains, but specifically, she is interested in how intersectionality contributes to perception and well-being. 

Email: mmazen@uwaterloo.ca


Hoda Aligoodarz   

Research Assistant     

hoda-goodarz

Hoda is a research assistant and has background in computer engineering. She is exploring the application of machine learning and natural language processing techniques in content analysis. As hobbies and interests, she enjoys watercolor painting, reading novels, traveling, and gathering with friends and family. 

Email: hoda.goodarz@uwaterloo.ca                                                                                                       


Safa Barlas

Research Assistant

safa-barlas

Safa is a fourth year undergraduate student pursuing her BA in Psychology at the University of Waterloo. She is passionate about how the human mind works and is interested in research areas of Psychology. She enjoys watching true crime documentaries and gathering with her family and friends.

Email: s2barlas@uwaterloo.ca


Kevin Chen

Visiting Research Assistant

Kevin Chen

Kevin is a fourth-year undergraduate student at the University of Pennsylvania pursuing a BA in Psychology and BS in Economics. He is interested in judgment and decision making in business contexts, and he enjoys watching YouTube documentaries in his free time. 

Email: kvnchen@sas.upenn.edu


Hannah Liu 

Visiting Research Assistant

Hannah Liu

Hannah Liu is a junior at the University of Pennsylvania studying Cognitive Science with minors in Computer Science and Chinese. Her research interests include artificial intelligence, machine learning, AI ethics, and the applicability of AI to our everyday lives. Outside of research, she is a student-athlete on Penn's Swim and Dive team, a member of Penn's Student Government, a member of Penn's Model UN team, and a computer science teaching assistant.

Email: hmliu@sas.upenn.edu