People
Philseok Lee, Ph.D (plee27@gmu.edu)
Lab Supervisor and assistant professor in GMU IO program
Dr. Lee earned his Ph.D. degree in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at the University of South Florida. His research interests focus on (1) developments and applications of modern psychometric modeling, (2) application of big data and machine learning techniques to work settings, (3) faking issues in personnel selection, (4) development of noncognitive personnel assessment, and (5) personality and individual differences. In applied settings, Dr. Lee has worked with university faculties and practitioners to develop and improve tests measuring constructs, such as performance, virtue, personality, and cognitive ability. Courses he taught at the university level include industrial/organizational psychology, personnel selection, research method, industrial test and measurement, psychometrics, and multivariate statistics. He currently serves on the editorial board of Organizational Research Methods and Personnel Assessment and Decisions. Dr. Lee is interested in admitting a graduate student. He is most keen on accepting students who want to pursue an academic career path. If you are interested, please feel free to contact him.
Shea Fyffe (sfyffe@gmu.edu)
Doctoral Student
Shea Fyffe is a 6th year doctoral student in Industrial/Organizational (I/O) Psychology Program. Shea attended Marshall University (West Virginia) for his undergraduate where he took interest in Industrial-Organizational (I/O) Psychology. After graduating, Shea spent a year and a half in Omaha Nebraska working as a research developer and test administrator. He then returned to academia; getting his master’s degree in I/O from Radford University. Shea worked as a Psychometric Data Analyst for roughly 3 year before being accepted to George Mason University. His research interests include the measurement of non-cognitive psychological attributes, gamification, using Item Response Theory in practice, and statistical programming. He loves to hike and exercise, take mediocre landscape photos, play trivia/board games, and program in R until 3 a.m.
Zihao Jia (zjia2@gmu.edu)
Doctoral Student
Zihao Jia is currently a 4th year Ph.D. student in the I/O Psychology Program. He received his Master’s degree in Psychology from Beijing Normal University. He also worked as a supervisor of undergraduate students at Beijing Normal University. His previous research experience includes survey design, longitudinal research methods, and the development of questionnaires.
For now, Zihao’s main research topics are focusing on faking detection, natural language processing, machine learning techniques, and psychological measurements. He is also interested in studying investor’s collective actions at forex or stock market as his hobby. He is devoted to combining the scientific research methods with real-world demands at workplaces, as well as developing more advanced psychological tools for researchers and practitioners to use.
Mina Son (mson6@gmu.edu)
Doctoral Student
Mina Son is a 3rd year doctoral student in the Industrial and Organizational Psychology program at George Mason University. She received a B.S. in Urban Planning and Engineering (2012) and M.A. in Social and Personality Psychology (2015) from Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea. After her graduation, she worked at an IT company as a psychologist(not a software programmer) for five years and developed commercial internet-based pre-employment hiring tools that included personality and aptitude tests, game-like tasks, and automated interview software. She also worked in the Korea Employment Information Service for a year and conducted text-analytics research projects using natural language processing.
Her research interests revolve around assessment, personnel selection, and individual differences, which have grown in her applied experience and previous research. She is particularly passionate about harnessing advanced technology (e.g. machine learning) for her research. Another line of her interests is the interaction between personality and situation.
Virginia Whitney Cheng (vcheng4@gmu.edu)
Doctoral Student
Virginia Cheng is currently in her 2nd year as a doctoral student in the Industrial-Organizational Psychology Program at George Mason University. Before joining George Mason, Virginia obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD) in May 2022. During her time at UMD, Virginia worked with Dr. Paul Hanges on her research interests in survey creation for leadership assessment and conducting sentiment analysis for evaluating military leadership. With the PAID lab, Virginia's research interests focus on noncognitive personnel assessments, psychometrics, and machine learning techniques. Her primary interest lies in incorporating scientific research methods for promoting diversity, equity, and inclusivity within workplace environments, striving to implement best practices in this regard.