People
Current Members
Moin Syed, Ph.D. - Director
Moin Syed is a McKnight Presidential Endowed 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 Identity. Google Scholar | OSF | Twitter | Bluesky | Blog
Dulce Wilkinson Westberg, Ph.D. - Post Doctoral Researcher
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
Phuong Linh L. Nguyen - Doctoral Student
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
Edward Chou - Doctoral Student
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
Rudy Perez - Doctoral Student
Rudy Perez is a PhD student in the Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota. His primary research interests include racial and ethnic categorization and classification, stereotyping, prejudice, discrimination, and stigma. Specifically, his research interests include understanding how disparate criminal legal system exposure and immigration enforcement impacts the health of children, families, and communities of color to inform and develop setting-specific policies. In his free time, he enjoys spending time with friends and family, going on walks, cycling, and trying new recipes at home.
Affiliated Doctoral Students
Kelly Duffy
Joseph DeWeese
Moin Syed also co-supervises doctoral students at other institutions, particularly at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden
David Sandberg, Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Tommy Reinholdsson, Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Alumni
Lab Alums
Aisha Udochi, M.A. (2022)
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 Liv 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.