New semester, new door, same curiosity
The start of a new semester is always a special moment, even though it’s now the “27th first day of class” for me (or 28th? I’ve lost count). For me, this fall at Claremont McKenna College feels especially meaningful — not just because my office door is finally decorated with syllabi, memes, and QR codes, but because it marks a return to California and to the kind of education that first shaped me.
A Brief Note on Long, Windy Journeys
I began my academic journey at Pepperdine University, where I learned what a liberal arts education could do for a curious student. The small classes, faculty who knew your name, and the constant push to connect big ideas across disciplines made an impression that stayed with me. I discovered that education is about much more than technical skill. It’s about perspective, community, and learning how to approach problems from multiple angles. That experience set me on the path to graduate school, where I trained as an I-O psychologist and developed a love for statistics and measurement that has never left me.
To be clear, that path may seem straightforward in retrospect, but it was anything but. I had an advisor recommend, post-college, that I work for a few years before applying for graduate school — this turned out to be amazing advice that led me to an exciting and formative time as a senior HR analyst for HelloFresh. Since then, I’ve had many twists and turns: I pursued administrative roles in higher education, even taking a full-time appointment at Purdue University’s institutional data office while finishing my dissertation. I considered teaching-focused tracks, nonprofit management consulting, and a variety of other paths before landing here at CMC.
Coming back to California now feels like a homecoming, and starting the tenure-track journey is a full circle to when I first felt like maybe, just maybe, I should pursue a PhD way back in undergrad. Only this time, I’m not the student nervously scanning course flyers — I’m the professor posting them. That still feels a little surreal.
Research in Motion
Which brings me back to my office door — finally, my own door to decorate in a way that represented who I am and what we do. Students walking by will find information about my courses, flyers about research opportunities in the STATS Lab, and a generous helping of memes. (My hope is that they make students smile, though I’m bracing for the possibility that a few might run the other way.) More than decoration, though, the door is an invitation. It’s a reminder that my door, both literally and figuratively, is open — just like my own professors’ doors back at Pepperdine.
Behind that door, the work of the semester is already in motion. The STATS Lab is pursuing a wide range of projects this year, reflecting both the breadth of industrial-organizational psychology and the diverse interests of the students who join us. A few highlights:
Measurement and assessment: We’re revisiting forced-choice methods, an assessment format with an 80-year history that’s often misunderstood but offers powerful advantages. Our recent review paper set the stage, and now we’re pushing into new applications, simulations, and experimental designs.
Leadership and careers: We’re continuing work on how leaders emerge and sustain influence in organizations, how careers morph and develop over time, and how to train leaders and the broader public to pursue healthier, more meaningful careers.
Technology and AI: We’re experimenting with natural language processing (NLP) to study concepts in the organizational sciences (I’ve got a particularly fun dataset based on reality TV transcripts!) and exploring how large language models like GPT can act as both research tools and objects of study.
Team science: Building on my dissertation in shared leadership, we’re examining how teams distribute influence and how that affects anything from performance to succession planning. I’m particularly excited to build out a physical lab space that will hopefully be interesting and fun for participants as they engage in simulated teamwork games!
It’s a methodological buffet: survey design, simulation, psychometrics, network modeling, text mining, machine learning. And like any buffet, the point isn’t that students need to try everything, but that there’s room for different tastes and interests. Some want to dive into coding, others into experimental design, others into theory-building. All have a place at the table. Want to get involved? Find out more here!
The Same Spirit in the Classroom
Teaching this fall gives me a chance to carry that spirit into the classroom. I’m teaching two introductory classes this fall — Organizational Psychology and Statistics — where students get to encounter for the first time the science of work and how statistics can actually be fun. They’re very different courses, but both reflect what excites me most: showing students how ideas connect to real-world questions. Alongside lectures and discussions, I’m building in experiences like career panels and debates, where students can see organizational science come alive in unexpected ways. Interested in taking my classes? Find my CMC faculty profile here!
Open Doors
For me, the door metaphor runs deep. Liberal arts education opened the first one. Graduate school opened the next. Research has kept opening doors I didn’t even know existed. And now, here at CMC, my literal door — covered in memes, flyers, and QR codes — is open too. I hope students will step through, whether to talk about research, grab a flyer, or just laugh at a joke about regression analysis.
So here’s to a semester of open doors. To new projects, new students, and new questions that we don’t yet know how to answer. To research that is rigorous but also playful. To teaching that is challenging but also welcoming. And to memes that, with any luck, won’t scare too many people away.
