Meet The Lab
Steve W. J. Kozlowski
OPTIMA Director
Steve W. J. Kozlowski, PhD is a World Class Scholar and Professor at the University of South Florida (previously he was at Michigan State University). He is a recognized authority in the areas of multilevel organizational systems theory; team leadership and team effectiveness; and learning, development, and adaptation. The goal of his programmatic research is to generate actionable theory, research-based principles, and deployable tools to develop adaptive individuals, teams, and organizations. His research has generated over $11M in funded work and is, or has been, supported by the Agency for Health Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), the Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences (ARI), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Office of Naval Research (ONR), among others. He has produced over 500 articles, books, chapters, reports, and presentations; his work has been cited over 41,000 times (Google Scholar). Dr. Kozlowski is a recipient of the SIOP Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award and the Interdisciplinary Network for Group Research (INGRoup) McGrath Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Study of Groups. He is the Editor for the Oxford Series on Organizational Psychology and Behavior and Editor for the new SIOP/Oxford Organizational Science, Translation, and Application Series. He is the former Editor-in-Chief and a former Associate Editor for the Journal of Applied Psychology. He is an Editorial Board Member for the Journal of Management and The Leadership Quarterly, and has served on the Editorial Boards of the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Current Directions in Psychological Science, Human Factors, the Journal of Applied Psychology, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA), the Association for Psychological Science, the International Association for Applied Psychology, and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP). He was the first Chair of the APA Open Science and Methodology Committee (2019-2020), serves as the SIOP Research and Science Officer (2017-2023), is a member of the APA Publications and Communications Board (2021-2026), and is a former member of the APA Advocacy Coordinating Committee (2019-2021). He is a Past-President of SIOP (2015-2016). Dr. Kozlowski received his BA in psychology from the University of Rhode Island, and his MS and PhD degrees in organizational psychology from The Pennsylvania State University.
Georgia T. Chao
OPTIMA Director
Georgia T. Chao, PhD is a Professor of Psychology and the Area Director for the Industrial-Organizational Psychology program. Prior to joining USF in 2020, she was a Professor of Management at the Eli Broad Graduate School of Management at Michigan State University. Her research interests are in the areas of teams, work adjustment, and work design with new technologies (exoskeletons). Her research has won awards, including the Outstanding Publication in Organizational Behavior award presented by the Academy of Management’s OB Division (1995), the Best Paper Award by the Editorial Board of Organizational Research Methods (2014), and the William A. Owens Scholarly Achievement Award in recognition of the best journal publication in 2013 by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (2015). She was elected to several positions in the American Psychological Association (APA), Academy of Management, and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) and served as SIOP’s President in 2020-2021. She is a Fellow of APA and SIOP and currently serves on three editorial boards. In 2017, Dr. Chao received SIOP’s Distinguished Service Award. She recently completed a two-year detail at the National Science Foundation (2018-2020). In addition to her primary duties as the Science of Organizations Program Officer, she also served as a Program Officer for two foundation-wide programs: NSF’s Research Traineeship and the Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier. Dr. Chao received her BS degree in psychology with honors from the University of Maryland and her MS. and PhD degrees in industrial and organizational psychology from The Pennsylvania State University.
Anthony Misisco
4th Year Graduate Student
Anthony Misisco holds a MA in organizational psychology from Michigan State University and is a PhD student at the University of South Florida. He researches team performance and adaptation, work-family boundary dynamics, training design and delivery, and diversity and inclusion. He has applied experience conducting job analysis, validation studies, and adverse impact analyses. He utilizes advanced statistical techniques such as Bayesian methodology, polynomial regression, and dynamic panel modeling to advance understanding of organizational phenomena.
Rebecca Lindgren
2nd Year Graduate Student
Rebecca Lindgren graduated from Clemson University in 2020 with a major in psychology and a minor in Spanish studies. While at Clemson, she worked on research projects involving nurse burnout, infertility in emergency physicians, and team communication in military teams. Rebecca’s research interests include team effectiveness, remote work, and employee wellbeing. For the 2022-23 academic year, she will be a second year industrial-organizational psychology student under the direction of Dr. Steve Kozlowski and Dr. Georgia Chao.
Wesley Gardiner
2nd Year Graduate Student
Wesley Gardiner graduated from the University of South Florida in 2020 with a major in Psychology with a focus on Data Science. He is interested in communication and emergent phenomena in teams, individual differences, psychometrics, and learning/using different machine learning techniques/natural language processing. He is also passionate about the mission of open science /open source. Feel free to connect with Wesley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wesley-gardiner4546/.
Jenna Bowker
1st Year Graduate Student
Jenna Bowker is a PhD student in the Industrial-Organizational Psychology program at the University of South Florida. She completed her bachelor’s of science at Wayne State University with a double major in psychology and statistics and a minor in mathematics. Her main research interests are teams, diversity and inclusion, and leadership. Her undergraduate honors thesis was titled “The Impact of Gender on the Relationship Between Job Performance and Promotion” and sought to examine the disparity of women in higher levels of management. For more information, Jenna can be contacted at [email protected].
Enzo Migliano
1st Year Graduate Student
Enzo Migliano is a PhD student in industrial and organizational psychology (IOP) at the University of South Florida. Interested in researching the intersection of big data and IOP, will join the OPTIMA Lab in fall 2022. His research interests are in how big data, IoT, machine learning, and other technologies can advance the IOP field. Enzo received his BBA in management with a minor in psychology, MS in big data analytics, and MS in cybersecurity from Saint Thomas University. Before pursuing his doctoral degree, he won several academic competitions, such as first place in microeconomics and second place in statistical analysis at the Phi Beta Lambda Florida State Conference. For more information, follow the link https://linktr.ee/enzonovimigliano.
Bradley Patterson
1st Year Graduate Student
Bradley Patterson earned his BS in aerospace engineering from Arizona State University. Working as a systems engineer after college he became interested in team dynamics. Taking inspiration from his previous experience working with NASA and on the F-22 program he became especially interested in teams working in isolated confined environments and in hazardous settings. He is also interested in what predicts team cohesion, team effectiveness, and how future technologies will impact the workplace.