Class of 2021

Jillian Bailles d'Err-Roy

Jillian is a graduate of the University of California, Davis with a BS in Genetics.  For the past decade, she has worked in various technical/management roles (specializing in solar salt production) for Cargill Salt, an agricultural/food manufacturing plant in the South Bay.  Her experience managing employees of different ages, cultures, languages and backgrounds, and her involvement in business-wide initiatives around women in leadership, inclusion and diversity, and workplace culture change led her to leave plant management behind and pursue the field of I-O Psychology.  Presently, she’s working in Dr. Wright’s Selection and Retention Lab and with Dr. Walker in the College of Business. Her research interests are around the intersection of culture, gender, organizational fit and embeddedness. In what little spare time she can cobble together, Jillian likes to watch her kids train to become Ninja Warriors, search for new recipes on YouTube to attempt in her kitchen, and indulge in some fantasy heroism playing Dungeons & Dragons.

Second Year Internship: San Francisco State University

Erica Britton

Erica recently moved to the Bay Area from Alabama. She attended Auburn University, where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology. During her time at Auburn, she worked as a research assistant, teaching assistant, and resident assistant. Her interest in the field was sparked by working in the Work-Life and Organizational Effectiveness Lab, which explored how the dynamics of work and home life interact with functioning on organizational and individual levels. After enrolling at SFSU, her interests still align with her undergraduate lab experience. She is currently a research assistant in Dr. Eschleman’s Health & Organizational Psychology Lab, where she would like to continue to explore work-life balance and how it interacts with personality and other concepts such as burnout. Outside of school, Erica works as a bartender, loves to watch Ted Talks, and attends concerts and festivals as much as she can.
 

Second Year Internship: Well Red

Dongbo Che

Dongbo Che has been conferred BA in psychology with high distinction in 2019 from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, as well as double minors in Statistics and Management. At UMN, Dongbo won the Mortenson award by earning the highest score among roughly 1,000 students in the Introduction to Psychology course and later worked as an undergraduate teaching assistant tutoring students of the same course for two years. In 2018 he published a research paper in the Sentience, an undergraduate psychological journal of the UMN. Dongbo also worked as a research assistant for Dr. Deniz Ones for one year. He collected, coded, and analyzed data for two meta-analyses regarding relationships between perfectionism and procrastination and between perfectionism and the Big Five model of personality. At the end of his senior year, he joined the Phi Beta Kappa (ΦΒΚ) Honor Society.

After rejecting offers from Columbia University and other highly ranked IO psychology master programs, Dongbo selected San Francisco State University for his future academic life. At SFSU, he worked as a graduate teaching assistant for the Introduction to Psychological Statistics course. He worked in Dr. Chris Wright’s lab and proposed a new research idea by using social perceptions to understand how interviewers rate interviewees in the one-way video interview. Dongbo loves this city and has a substantial enthusiastic in personnel selection, motivation, organizational development, and other related IO fields. After graduation, he hopes to acquire experience from other IO practitioners and dreams to transport IO psychology back to China, a potentially huge market for IO.

Second Year Internship: Papira International Beauty Group Corporation., Ltd.

Kathya Garcia

Kathya Garcia graduated from San Jose State University where she received her B.A in Psychology and minor in Business. She was introduced to the world of Industrial and Organizational psychology after she got involved in Dr. Altovise Roger’s Occupational Health and Work Efficiency lab where they investigated effective leadership styles, discrimination in the workplace, and generational differences in employees. She is interested in many areas of I/O including diversity, leadership, recruitment, and selection. Currently, she hopes to further her understanding of the impacts of technology on workplace practices with her involvement in Dr. Diana Sanchez’s Workplace Technology Lab. Kathya’s career goal is to either work in a consulting firm or in a tech-based company, helping the organization to diversify its human capital. In her spare time, she likes to catch up on Netflix shows and spend time with her friends and family.

Second Year Internship: FHL Bank San Francisco 

Sabika Haq

Sabika graduated from Benedictine University with a BA in Psychology. Passionate about exploring different ways to aid people, she held several roles throughout undergrad including volunteering at a behavioral health hospital, conducting Applied Behavioral Analysis therapy with children with autism and working as a Research Assistant in the Clinical Psychology Graduate Program at Northwestern University. While initially interested in pursuing clinical psychology, she realized her desire to continue her education in I/O Psychology after working as an Office Manager for InCube Labs. She had the opportunity to work in several functions of Human Resources including talent management, employee engagement and training and development. She enjoyed supporting all employees and wanted to find innovative ways to make the workplace more fulfilling, healthy and productive. Sabika’s research interests include employee well-being, attitudes and beliefs about work, counter-productive work behaviors and work-life balance. In her free time, she loves hiking in national parks, playing basketball and trying out halal food spots in the Bay Area.

Second Year Internship: DocuSign

Grace Morrison

Grace graduated from Santa Clara University in 2009 with a BA in English and a minor in Music. Teaching English was a passion she developed during college as a peer tutor and which guided her subsequent career moves. After graduation, she spent six months teaching in rural India. Once she returned to the States, she was accepted into an teaching preparation fellowship called the Match Teacher Residency, where fellows train at a working school serving disadvantaged students in the Boston area. After getting credentialed, this California native moved back to the west coast, teaching middle and high school English in San Jose and Los Gatos. Although she loves working with students and passionately believes in the importance of English instruction, Grace decided to step away from teaching. She encountered consistent frustrations with the structure of a teacher’s role in all of her schools. Conversations with friends and family led her to see similar patterns in their workplaces. A desire to learn more about how communication and leadership can make happier and more productive workplaces led her to decide to join SFSU’s I/O Master’s program, where she is interested in organizational structure, performance evaluation, training, and workplace culture. When she’s not studying or working, Grace can be found drinking tea while she cuddles her dog and plans her next hike.

Second Year Internship: Venture Leadership Consulting

Mahsa Norouzi Nargesi

Mahsa Norouzi Nargesi studied her B.A. and M.A. in Clinical Psychology at Alzahra University of Tehran. During her time in Tehran, Mahsa developed an interest in the practical application of psychology in the workplace by working with patients with emotional disorders and seeing how their work environment affected their mental health. She moved to San Francisco to pursue her passion in IO psychology. At SFSU, Mahsa belongs to Dr. Diana Sanchez’s Workplace Technology Research Lab, and her primary interest is the application of technology in employees’ training and assessment. Mahsa is a plant lover, and in her spare time, she enjoys cooking, listening to music, and playing recreational sports.

Second Year Internship: Soligent

Teresa Pham

Teresa graduated from Pomona College in 2019 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Asian American studies. Her interest in I/O stemmed from discussions with her psychology teacher in high school which deepened after taking coursework at Pomona. In undergrad, she had multiple internships relating to the I/O field, from recruiting to learning and development which reinforced her desire to study I/O. For her senior thesis at Pomona, Teresa combined her interests and studied how to influence the perception of Asian American women as leaders in the workplace. At SFSU, she hopes to continue to improve her understanding about diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace, employee selection, and She hopes to continue this research on diversity in the workplace in her time at SFSU. In her free time, Teresa enjoys finding new places to eat, baking, beauty, and having silly and deep conversations with friends.

Second Year Internship: ServiceNow

Sharon Pidakala

Sharon earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology & Economics from the University at Buffalo and started working as a Human Resources Recruiter and a Team Building Executive. As a HR Recruiter of a startup company, she oversaw the entire employee selection process and helped the company grow in strength. As a Team Building Executive, she assisted lead facilitators in team building events for clients all across Southeast Asia. Working these jobs deepened her interest in Industrial Organizational Psychology.

Being born in India and raised in Singapore she knew she wanted to diversify her background even further by continuing her education in the United State. Now being enrolled in SF State's I/O program, she loves discussing issues related to her previous work experiences as well as discovering and learning about newer emerging topics in the field of I/O, such as technology-based training and the benefits of diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Off-school hours, Sharon is having fun living aborad for the very first time and is learning how to live life independently. She loves being physically active by going on hikes and at the same time loves kicking back, eating pizza and listening to contemporary and alternative R&B tunes.

Second Year Internship: Interviewer.AI

Janice Vu

Janice Vu graduated from Cal Poly Pomona in 2018 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Human Resources Management. During her time at Cal Poly, she was a research assistant for Dr. Jill Nemiro’s lab that explored intrinsic motivation in high school students. Following this, she became a research associate for the Asian American Transnational Research Initiative where she assisted in research on attitudinal and generational differences between millennials and Gen Zs. These experiences during her undergraduate years developed her interests in the applications of research. Outside of the academic setting, Janice’s work experiences in small businesses and public service sparked her interests in the challenges that arise in the workplace.  Her desire to pursue a degree in I/O stems from the combination of her workplace interests with her enthusiasm for research. Janice is currently a research assistant in Dr. Sanchez’s Workplace Technology Lab and Dr. Eschleman’s Health & Organizational Psychology Lab. In her free time, Janice enjoys trying new restaurants and cuisines, exploring the city, and spending time with friends.

Second Year Internship: Ring Central

Hannah Zimman

Hannah Zimman received her B.A. in Psychology from San Deigo State University (May 2018). During this time, she developed a passion for research while working for two years in a cognitive neuroscience research lab and a worker health and well-being research lab. At SFSU, Hana is involved in Dr. Sanchez's Workplace Tehcnology Research Lab, as well as Dr. Eschleman's Health and Organizational Psychology (HOP) Lab. Hana aspires to use her I-O Psychology degree to continue conducting research that examines the impact of social differences, cultural factors, public policy, and technologyon the dynamics of the worplace, and the subsequent effects that worker well-being has on society. Hana typically spends her free time drawing/painting, playing volleyball, snowboarding in the winter, and hiking in the summer. 

Second Year Internship: Integral Talent Systems, Inc.