Odillia
Dys-Steenbergen

I am a PhD student with a passion for social justice and an interest in both basic and applied research with a specific focus on intergroup relations and social identity. My Masters’ thesis examined the role of self-expansion motivation (the basic need to grow as a person) in cross-group interactions. My dissertation research will continue to look at the role of self-expansion motivation but within the context of community identity in a number of different neighbourhoods in Greater Vancouver in collaboration with the United Way of the Lower Mainland. For the last three years I have also facilitated a poverty simulation (see: https://mempovertysimulation.com/), designed to increase people’s awareness about poverty; and more recently I have joined a large research consortium (Success in STEM, see: http://successinstem.ca/) that tries to promote the social inclusion of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).
Email: odysstee@sfu.ca

Priscilla
Shum

I am a PhD student in Social Psychology at Simon Fraser University. I received my Bachelors in Psychology and Masters in Educational Psychology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. My research interests includes prejudice and stereotype reduction, social contact and collective action, identity and language attitudes, and as a side-hobby: embodied cognition. My dissertation focuses mainly on cross-gender interactions and how they maintain or reduce sexist beliefs. In my free time, I enjoy puttering around the house, catching up with the latest anime, and reading so-bad-it’s-good romance novels.
Email: pshum@sfu.ca

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