Class of 2022

Alejandro Albedrop

Alejandro Albedrop graduated from SFSU with a B.A. in Psychology. Throughout his undergraduate career, Alejandro has worked as a personal trainer, assisting clients in meeting short- and long-term goals while empowering and motivating them. He has also worked in the restaurant industry for several years, gaining experience informally leading teams and assisting in team effectiveness to improve the staff’s overall job satisfaction while maximizing the organization’s effectiveness. These diverse experiences cultivated an awareness of how several organizational factors, such as leadership, climate, and training, can lead to a meaningful impact on the overall well-being of the workforce. Alejandro became inspired to discover what practices could be utilized by organizations to reduce unnecessary workplace stressors that may negatively impact an employee’s well-being. Alejandro has worked in Dr. Wright’s Employee Selection & Retention Lab on numerous projects related to workplace narcissism, job embeddedness, and socioeconomic status. Currently, Alejandro is a research assistant in Dr. Eschleman’s Health & Organizational Psychology Lab, assisting with projects related to narcissism in the workplace. Alejandro’s career goals consist of bringing the evidence-based practices of I/O Psychology into high-risk & high-stress job industries to improve the health, safety, and well-being of the workforce. In his spare time, Alejandro enjoys exercising, listening to podcasts and audiobooks, watching television, and cooking.

Second Year Internship: Campesinos Unidos Inc. 

Alex Clauson

Alex completed his undergraduate education in his home state at University of Minnesota - Twin Cities in 2019 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and minors in Neuroscience and Philosophy. Alex was actively involved with research, internships, and non-profit development during his undergraduate education. He was a clinical research assistant for a 10-year longitudinal study of aging and memory called the Minnesota Memory Project, a research intern studying pediatric chronic pain management at Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare, and a research coordination intern for a non-profit consulting company assisting with nonprofit branding and strategic planning projects. Alex directed his school’s chapter of Camp Kesem for two years, a collegiate-run non-profit that provides a week of summer camp for children impacted by a parent’s cancer. Alex’s passion for research and customer service led him to a consulting role as an IT business analyst serving Fortune 500 companies in Minnesota before deciding to pursue higher education at San Francisco State University.

Second Year Internship: Cerner

Joey Demeter

Joey is a native of Oakland CA and attended Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He graduated from Loyola Marymount in 2013 with a B.A. in psychology and a minor in health science.  As an undergraduate student, Joey focused his courses of study on understanding humans from both a psychological and biological perspective. Additionally, he worked as a research assistant for Dr. Aaron Lukaszewski on projects investigating factors that interact with the expression personality characteristics. As a student in Industrial/Organizational Psychology M.S. program at San Francisco State, Joey is a member of Dr. Christian Wright’s Employee Selection and Retention Lab and has worked on research projects studying narcissism in the employee selection process and workplace BS. Joey has a passion for athletics and currently coaches high school football and rugby.  

Second Year Internship: Freenome

Angela Hua

Angela Hua completed her Bachelor of Human Resources Management degree at York University, which is located in her hometown, Toronto, Canada. During her undergraduate years, she was a research assistant for a variety of projects under Dr. Len Karakowsky and Dr. Anita Boey. Some of the projects Angela was involved with included job crafting as a response to abusive supervision and a meta-analysis on the sampling characteristics of work-life balance/conflict-related studies between 1999-2019. Angela’s experiences as an undergraduate research assistant were greatly impactful, inspiring her to pursue a career in academic research within the fields of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behaviour. Her research interests centre on the dynamic relationship between leaders and followers, and such topics include narcissistic leadership, employee wellbeing, and psychological contracts. At San Francisco State University, Angela worked as a research assistant in Dr. Eschleman’s Health & Organizational Psychology Lab in which she has led a project in narcissistic personality and attribution bias. She was also a poster presenter at The Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology (SIOP) 2021 conference and co-wrote a section of the extended study titled, “Relationship between Resilience Traits and Attraction to Challenge and Hindrance Demands: Connecting Organizational Attraction and Job Crafting Theories.” In terms of her individual pursuits, Angela’s Master thesis examined the potential impact of leniency bias that narcissistic leaders may exhibit on certain candidates in an evaluation context. Apart from her professional life, Angela enjoys staying active through consistent yoga practice and hiking. She is also an arts enthusiast and often finds herself absorbed in the history and culture of fine arts, music, and fashion.

Second Year Internship: Facebook

Dan Iwanaga

Dan received his B.S. in Psychology and minor in Philosophy at his alma mater: Cal Poly SLO. He spent his time there as a research assistant for Dr. Laura Cacciamani and Dr. Julie Rodgers; they worked on audio illusions with the tritone paradox and using group affirmation to buffer self-esteem in people exposed to blatant racism, respectively. Additionally, Dan enjoyed spending his course units on learning new knowledge, skills, and abilities. This list includes beekeeping, tennis, bowling, volleyball, piano, coding, film analysis and healthy living. This interest in skill acquisition and research led Dan to SFSU’s I/O Psychology Masters program. He is currently working with Dr. Diana Sanchez in the Workplace Technology Research Lab which lies with his interest in technology and games. He is the project lead on the Game-Based Training Meta-Analysis project which looks at all the research literature on game-based training and accumulates them for analysis. Dan’s research thesis involves the use of ethnography to research the skill acquisition of decision making in video games and if it's transferable to work. Dan will one day create a game-based training that will help employees learn new knowledge, skills, and abilities used in the workplace. In his free time, Dan continues his pursuit of gaining new skills (pen spinning, knitting, sketching, etc.), reading epic fantasies, playing video games with friends, and taking it easy.

Second Year Internship: TBD

Clifton Lee

Clifton completed his undergraduate education at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona with a B.A in Psychology and a Minor in Human Resource Management.  While at Cal Poly Pomona, Clifton thrust himself into many different pursuits.  He was formerly the Division II captain for his university’s Dota 2 team as well as the former secretary for his school’s Psi Chi organization. He worked in two research labs, the The I/O Psychology lab led by Dr. Sara Langford, and the Psychology of Immigration lab led by Dr. Alejandro Morales.  He is a Ronald E. McNair scholar and presented his study on video games and virtual teams in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The combination of Clifton’s undergraduate experiences and interests led him to pursue a Master’s in Industrial/Organizational Psychology at SFSU under the mentorship of Dr. Diana Sanchez, whose research interests coincide with Clifton’s perfectly.  Currently, Clifton is working towards crafting a thesis which seeks to look at what leadership behaviors emerge from virtual teams in video games.  Clifton hopes that one day he will be able to work as a consultant and advise organizations on how to best utilize virtual teams.  In his down time, Clifton enjoys playing video games, catching up on sleep, and watching anime.   

Second Year Internship: Still Green Inc.

Leila Jimeno Jimenez

Leila Jimeno Jimenez was born and raised in Spain and moved to the Bay Area in 2017. She studied a BA in Early Childhood Education in "Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca" becoming the first to be granted an Erasmus scholarship to study her senior year in "Università degli Studi Suor Orsola Benincasa" in Naples, Italy where she graduated. Right after graduation she started her second BA in Psychology in "Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia". Her interest in I/O stemmed from her experiences as a family assistant. Over a short time, it became clear to her that she was serving more of a consultant to families and that she felt a pull towards helping others uplift in a professional setting. After rejecting offers from San Jose State University and other IO programs, Leila selected San Francisco State University to pursue her master’s degree. During her time as SFSU, she joined the Health & Organizational Psychology Lab (HOP Lab) led by Dr. Kevin Eschleman and the Workplace Technology Research Lab (WorkTech Lab) led by Dr. Diana Sanchez. Through her commitment to the labs, she became the project leader of the novel Mentoring Undergraduate Student Experience (MUSE) program, which is intended to provide resources for students who might traditionally be underserved and uninformed, and had the opportunity to co-present a poster session at the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) 2021 conference. For her thesis she worked towards developing a Game-Based Assessment that would help employers make better hiring decisions while accounting for faking behaviors, diverse impact and unconscious bias. Her main interest lies in helping companies create a compelling selection process that hires talented and diverse candidates. She is hoping to help companies achieve a more diverse, inclusive and efficient workforce that will allow them to thrive and accomplish their goals. During her free time, she loves to travel, having visited 23 US states and 16 different countries around the world. 

Second Year Internship: Twitter

Yucheng Lu

Yucheng (Luke) Lu was born and raised in Guilin, China. He moved to Los Angeles in 2009 and later moved to the Bay Area for college in 2015. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Psychology at UC Berkeley in 2017. During his undergraduate years, he volunteered in two Psychology labs (the Language and Cognitive Development Lab and the Golden Bear Sleep & Mood Research Clinic) and used implicit association test to study how language can influence an individual’s unconscious judgments toward different groups of people and how memorization techniques can influence Cognitive Behavior Theopy’s effectiveness. Instead of doing an honor thesis, he chose to establish a psychology community for undergraduates that aimed to provide emotional and social support to minorities who majored or were interested in Psychology. This organization is called Psychology Group at Berkeley, and it is still active today. After graduating from college, he worked in an HR company for almost 2 years and finally found his passion in the HR field. He wants to help people to find meaning in their jobs and to pursue happiness with their careers. He’s currently participating in Dr. Diana Sanchez’s WorkTech Research Lab and trying to figure out how to find the “true” scores that are not influenced by self-distortion and faking behaviors. Eventually, he hopes he can bring the Scientist-Practitioner Model to the workplace and use his data analytic skills to solve real-world problems. His ideal position is a People Analyst. In his spare time, he has been practicing martial arts since 13 years old and learned many styles, including Kyokushin Karate, Kickboxing, Kungfu, Judo, Yongmudo, and Taekwondo. He also enjoys bouldering, hiking, and playing basketball with his friends. And, of course, he loves to play video games.

Second Year Internship: Tik Tok; Intuit

Dominic Rivera

Dominic is a Bay Area native and first-generation college student. He graduated with his bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Sacramento State University in 2014, after transferring from Napa Valley College. During his time as an undergraduate student, Dominic’s interest in understanding the relationships between social contexts, cultural attitudes, and academic achievement led to him serving as a research assistant in Dr. Greg Kim-Ju’s Cultural / Community Psychology lab for two years. Dominic continued to refine his research interests as a Ronald E. McNair Scholar, where he conducted an independent research study that investigated how school diversity shapes peer-relations, ethnic identity, and empathy towards individuals of ethnic groups different from one’s own. Dominic also co-authored a book chapter with one his faculty mentors, Dr. Cid Martinez of University of San Diego, titled “Responding to Violence, Keeping the Peace: Interracial Relations between Black and Latino Youth Gangs” in Dr. Martinez’s book, The Neighborhood Has Its Own Rules: Latinos and African Americans in South Los Angeles.

Since graduating from Sacramento State, Dominic has spent over six years applying his research skills as a Senior Research Associate and now a Project Manager at Learning for Action—a San Francisco-based evaluation, research, and strategic planning consulting firm. Dominic manages and executes research activities in service of data-driven decision-making, impact measurement, and strategy refinement. Through Dominic’s various lived, research, and work experiences, he has become deeply interested in helping organizations create inclusive work environments in which employees with a diverse range of skills and experiences can thrive. Dominic hopes to provide more opportunities for under-represented job applicants to succeed and thrive in professional settings. Outside of his professional and academic pursuits, Dominic enjoys training for and running marathons, playing no limit Texas hold em’ poker at local card rooms, and listening to Bay Area hip hop, especially Mac Dre and E-40.

Second Year Internship: Twist

Tamara Skootsky

Tamara Skootsky is currently a master’s student in Industrial/Organizational Psychology at San Francisco State University. She completed her undergraduate degree at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec in 2014. In her early career, she worked in active travel and team-building. Across four different organizations, her responsibilities variously included supporting operational and strategic projects with data analytics, coordinating trip logistics and information, and facilitating meaningful experiences for diverse groups of 2-200+. More recently, Tamara served as a social science research assistant and coordinator in the departments of management and organizational behavior at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She has contributed to work on topics such as interpersonal perception, group commitment, negotiation, organizational culture, leader personality, emotional acknowledgement, positive performance management, virtual communication and retention. She is passionate about using research and analytics to support employee engagement, satisfaction and well-being. When she’s not studying, you can find Tamara cycling, hiking or baking bread.

Second Year Internship: San Francisco Public Utilities Commission

Rosie Talcott

Rosie graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 2013 with a BA in Anthropology and a minor in Psychology. After graduating, she moved to New York City where she worked at both a school and an education start-up and grew her interest in people operations. She became especially interested in how teams can be set up for success and the role that leadership plays in forming an inclusive and just work environment. In 2017, she moved back to her native Bay Area and began working as a Consultant at Taproot Foundation, a national nonprofit that connects the social sector with business talent through pro bono programs. Through this work, she has gained valuable insights into both the corporate and nonprofit sectors and scoped hundreds of capacity-building projects to support social good organizations. This work aligns with Rosie’s passion for giving back to her community through time and skill and has allowed her to see the inner workings of small but mighty nonprofits across the country. Her consulting work and experiences in a number of small and medium-sized companies has led her to pursue her master’s in I/O Psychology at SF State where she hopes to focus her studies on training and development, leadership, and DEI. At SF State, she works as a research assistant in Dr. Eschleman’s Health & Organizational Psychology Lab supporting research on narcissism in the workplace. When she’s not working or studying, Rosie is going on adventures and laughing with friends.

Second Year Internship: San Francisco Public Utilities Commission

Rana Tawfik

Rana is a graduate of UC San Diego with a B.S. in Public Health and a minor in Global Health. At the undergraduate level, she enjoyed planning and organizing events that emphasized spreading awareness and creating spaces for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion discussions. Taking that emphasis on DEI with her throughout her career, Rana has had experience assisting refugee families in the non-profit world. She hopes to transfer the skills and insights she had gained from those experiences to her career as an IO Psychologist as she is mainly interested in examining the equity of job selection methods as well as studying the best strategies to increase job satisfaction and employee motivation and well-being. In her free time, Rana enjoys watching reality TV and competition shows, as well as watching movie and TV character analysis videos on Youtube.

Second Year Internship: Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco