About
My undergraduate degree in Forensic Psychology and Political Science was completed at Ontario Tech University. While studying, I was fortunate enough to conduct two major research projects. My honours thesis project was with Dr. Tanya Karam-Zanders and investigated the roles of gender expression and one's own gender role-self concept in facial recognition accuracy. My independent study in Political Science was supervised by Dr. Scott Aquanno and looked at the role of finance and the modern period that has been termed "financial capital."
Today, my research continues to investigate topics of interest in social cognition. This is a discipline that essentially studies how our cognition impacts, and is impacted by, our social environments. Here is a quick exercise you can do to show you what I mean:
Who are you? Seriously. What makes you "you"? Is it your personality? What determines your personality? Is it your culture? Is it your household? Is it your workplace or school? Or...is it all of these and more?
The "you" part is your cognition. It's everything you think and feel. Feeling happy? That's your cognition. Are you currently thinking about a great TV show you watched? That's your cognition. But these things come and go like the wind most times. That's where your social environments play a role. The "you" that is at school may be different or the same as the "you" that is at home. Your "you" may even change as you navigate social relationships (platonic, romantic, familial, and even within these groups!).
My role as a social psychology student is to study the various impacts that influence stereotypes, prejudices, facial recognition accuracy, implicit and explicit associations, and more! As well, all of these are linked to memory since our memory is what we remember and think will happen, and influences how we are likely to act in the future.
You can read my CV at the link below for some of my accomplishments.