Graduate Students

Maitland
Waddell

I previously completed both my undergraduate and MA degree at Simon Fraser University, and I am currently continuing with my PhD under the supervision of Dr. Stephen Wright. Broadly speaking, my research interests involve group processes and collective action, with a particular focus on the psychological processes through which group members come to support collective actions that cause harm to an outgroup. This work has examined several important real-world contexts, including US Presidential elections, environmental movements, the Black Lives Matter movement, and Hong Kong’s Anti-ELAB protests.

Since 2015, I have also been a co-facilitator/facilitator of our lab’s Making Ends Meet poverty simulator, an intensive perspective-taking intervention in which participants take on the role of a low-income family member and attempt to navigate the system to make ends meet during a simulated month in poverty. Our research has demonstrated that Making Ends Meet is effective in improving attributions for poverty as well as increasing intentions to vote for welfare policy and engage in poverty-reducing allyship.

I’m an animal and nature lover and am active in environmental movements both on- and off-campus. In my spare time you’ll find me tending to my fish tanks, gardening, listening to records, cooking, and playing video games and the guitar.
Email: mwaddell@sfu.ca
Full CV

Marissa
Traversa
(They/She)

I am a PhD student and SSHRC Doctoral Fellow in the IRSJ Lab. I completed my MA in Social Psychology at SFU with Dr. Wright and also hold a BA, Honours from the University of Waterloo in Psychology with a minor in Sexuality, Marriage, and Family Studies. My MA research, which was awarded the CPA Certificate for Academic Excellence, focused on how the contentious practice of cancel culture can be collectively validating for groups experiencing harm. My dissertation expands on this finding by further investigating the experience of collective validation, exploring the components of cancel culture, and investigating contexts that may moderate the relationship between cancel culture and collective validation. I am also a lead author on three collaborative projects with both the SISC and SECURE Labs in the SFU Social Psychology Department. The first uses an experimental design to assess the psychological impacts of different types of gender survey questions on gender queer participants. The second qualitatively explores the trajectories that lead environmental activists toward activism. The third expands on my undergraduate work on masculinity and gender-based violence.

I am also involved in SFU governance as a Graduate Senator and am a member of both the Senate Graduate Studies Committee and Senate Review Committee. I am an advocate for graduate student funding that meets cost-of-living requirements and represents the quality and importance of graduate student research.

When I’m not in the lab or a café working, you can find me at home with my partner and two cats, watching true crime documentaries or baking and eating cake.
Email: marissa_traversa@sfu.ca
Full CV

Ziv
Levin

I’m a PhD student in the IRSJ lab. I received my BA in psychology and sociology from the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yafo in 2011, my group facilitation diploma from the School for Peace in 2014, my MA in social psychology from Tel Aviv University in 2015, and my academic teaching certificate from Simon Fraser University in 2017. My dissertation work explores the effects of extended contact with majority group members (i.e., the inclusion of outgroup members in one’s broader social network) on the political (dis)engagement of minority group members.
Email: zlevin@sfu.ca