People

DIRECTOR

Moin Syed, Ph.D. Moin Syed is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. His research focuses on identity and personality development among ethnically and culturally-diverse adolescents and emerging adults. Dr. Syed has conducted numerous workshops on methods, open science, preregistration, and theory development across the U.S. and Europe, and has edited multiple special issues of journals focusing on Registered Reports, a new publication format that prioritizes study conceptualization and design over findings in order to combat publication bias. He is currently the Editor of Infant and Child Development., is co-Editor (with Kate C. McLean) of the Oxford Handbook of Identity Development, the past Editor of Emerging Adulthood, the official journal of the Society for the Study of Emerging Adulthood, and is past President of the International Society for Research on IdentityGoogle Scholar | OSF  | Twitter  | Blog

POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCHERS

Dulce Wilkinson Westberg, Ph.D. Dulce Wilkinson Westberg is a Post Doctoral Researcher at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Her research program focuses on the nature and implications of structural-individual relations within and across various identity domains including race-ethnicity, gender, and social class. She is particularly interested in diversity of identity-related experiences and seeks to identify and disrupt structural inequalities through her research in ways that help bridge systematic inequalities. Broadly, her interests include culture, identity development, personality, diversity, and social justice. Google Scholar | Twitter

DOCTORAL STUDENTS

Phuong Linh L. Nguyen. Linh is an international student from Hanoi, Vietnam. Her research program broadly covers personality change and personality assessments. In particular, she is interested in within-person variability in personality using both traditional longitudinal methods and intensive longitudinal designs for momentary fluctuations. She has a secondary specialization in statistics and research methods and completed a concurrent M.S. degree in Statistics at the U. For her dissertation, she will investigate assortative mating patterns in romantic dyads using different levels of personality as well as both static and dynamic assessments of personality traits. Upon graduation, she aims to apply her dual training to pursue a career as a quantitative research scientist or data scientist in people analytics domain. Google Scholar | Twitter Personal Webpage

Aisha Udochi. Aisha received her B.S. in Psychology and Counseling with a minor in Sociology at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway AR. Her research interests focus on analyzing and mapping personality traits to the neural networks that govern their expression and exploring how personality traits relate to identity development over time. For her Master’s thesis, she will be exploring whether cognitive ability is predictive of identity development in educational and interpersonal identity commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration of commitment. Google Scholar Twitter

Edward Chou. Edward is a generalist who has found refuge in the field of personality psychology. He is particularly interested in personality assessment. His current research interests include integrating assessments of the individual (e.g., narrative identity, psychotherapy, value fulfillment) with those that focus on between-person differences (e.g., the trait hierarchy and its maladaptive variants). Through his research and teaching, he aims to help people understand themselves better, so that they can live fulfilling lives that are appropriate for their unique combination of personality, identity, and life circumstances. Google Scholar Twitter

Affiliated Doctoral Students

Gustaf Glåva, Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

David Sandberg, Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Tommy Reinholdsson, Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Lab Alums

Ummul-Kiram Kathawalla, Ph.D. (2021)

Jillian Fish, Ph.D. (2020)

Sarah (Morrison-Cohen) Nelson, Ph.D. (2019) 

Alex Ajayi, Ph.D. (2018)

Lauren Mitchell, Ph.D. (2018)

Lovey (Walker) Peissig, Ph.D. (2016) 

Hasan Atak, Ph.D. (Post-Doc, 2015-16)

José Causadias, Ph.D. (2014)

Mary Joyce Juan, Ph.D. (2014)

Reiko Hirai, Ph.D. (2013)

Affiliated Lab Alums

Shogo Hihara, Ph.D. 

Py Lv Eriksson, Ph.D. 

Adam Kim, Ph.D. 

Sheila Frankfurt, Ph.D. 

Johanna Carlsson, Ph.D. 

Fanny Gyberg, Ph.D. 

Ursula Moffitt, Ph.D. 

Alison Hu, Ph.D. 

Joyce Lee, Ph.D. 

Xiang Zhou, Ph.D. 

AnnaMarie Vu, Ph.D. 

Nazneen Bahrassa, Ph.D. 

Reid Reichwald, Ph.D. 

Oh Myo Kim, Ph.D.