Former Lab Members

Nachwa graduated from Kwantlen Polytechnic University in the Spring of 2023 with a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Psychology and minoring in Counselling. Nachwa aspires to work in the mental health field with children and youth as a registered clinical psychologist.

Her topics of interest in research include psychometrics, group dynamics, and learning environments. This led her to join the GDP Lab and explore aspects of individuals working, studying, and socializing in groups. For her Practicum, with Dr. Shayna Minosky’s supervision and guidance, she explored the impact of various communication mediums on student perceptions of social presence, rapport, and engagement in the online learning environment.

Nachwa enjoys spending time with family or making plans with friends during her free time to catch up with them. She also enjoys reading fictional murder mysteries, romances, and fantasy books and then posting reviews about her favourite reads on her blog.

Robyn was an international student from the Philippines. She graduated from Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Applied Psychology, which she started attending in the Fall semester of 2018. In addition to the Group Dynamics and Psychometrics Lab, Robyn was also a member of the Lifespan Cognition Lab at KPU. She is also currently working with Brandon Justus on his research on tabletop games and teamwork. For her Honours Thesis, with the guidance and supervision of Dr. Shayna Minosky, she investigated the effects of different musical genres (classical, lo-fi, and silence) on performance in different exam types (reading comprehension, spatial ability, and numerical reasoning), but also considering different personality types (extraversion vs. introversion) as well. In the near future, she is aiming to attend medical school to be a Psychiatrist or attend graduate school to become a Clinical Psychologist. 

During her free time, Robyn loves playing, making, and listening to music. She can play the acoustic guitar, electric guitar and ukelele. From time to time, she would pull out GarageBand or BandLab and put a song together for fun, whether it was a simple lo-fi beat, a rap beat or covers. Other than this, she loves playing tabletop games and a few video games as well. She also enjoys being in the company of her loved ones and her six dogs: Lilly, Tami, Hatchi, Zoey, Lucas, and Luna.

Michael is a B.A.A. (Applied Arts) student at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. He completed his degree in psychology and graduated in the Spring of 2022. 

He worked under the supervision of Dr. Shayna Minoksy as a research assistant in her Group Dynamics and Psychometrics lab to complete his practicum. He has been working on researching various aspects of student-student and student-faculty interactions in both online and face-to-face learning environments. 

During his free time, he loves watching hockey and is a die-hard Canucks fan. In addition, he loves going to the gym, socializing with friends and family, and playing video games.

Leonardo was a Bachelor of Science (Applied Psychology) student at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. He completed his degree in psychology and graduated in the Spring of 2022. To complete his practicum, he worked as a research assistant under the supervision of Dr. Shayna Minosky in her GDP lab. He reviewed the literature on scales and measurements measuring attitudes toward teamwork in a variety of classroom settings.

In his free time, Leonardo enjoys going to the gym, spending time with friends, and playing sports and video games.

Omar was a psychology student who dreamed of one day becoming the type of doctor who couldn’t even save a flea but could surely talk your ear off about what makes a human tick.

Stephanie Ng completed her B.A. with a major in psychology. With a minor in Language and Culture focusing in Japanese, she enrolled in KPU’s exchange program and spent a year studying at Toyo University in Tokyo. Currently, she is doing her Honours research under the supervision of Dr. Shayna Minosky to study how online learning amidst the COVID-19 pandemic affects students. Her interests include mental health, unique psychological phenomena, travelling, good food, and, of course, her dog.

Amanda graduated from KPU with a B.A. Psychology Honours degree in April 2021. Her honours thesis was a program evaluation to examine the effectiveness of teaching introductory psychology online at KPU in response to the mandatory transition to online teaching and learning. Her areas of research interest include psychometrics, educational evaluation, and the learning environment. 

Amanda began her MA in Measurement, Evaluation, and Research Methodology in September 2022.

Brittney received her BA (Honors) with a major in psychology and a minor in counselling from Kwantlen Polytechnic University in 2020. She has been involved in various projects within Dr. Minosky’s Group Dynamics and Psychometrics lab regarding psychometric development regarding Self Directed Learning Readiness and Team Attitudes and Experiences.

For her Honours Thesis, she conducted a mixed-methods study that used focus group interviews to investigate factors that may contribute to smartphone usage and identify which of these factors are correlated with smartphone addiction.

Brittney worked on various projects for the Group Dynamics and Psychometrics Lab. She enjoys outdoor activities and photography.

Jonathan graduated with a B.A.A (Applied Arts) Honours in Psychology from Kwantlen Polytechnic University in 2021, with a minor in Counselling and a Certificate in Non-profit/NGO studies. Jonathan also completed the Marketing Communications program at BCIT.

His research interests include mental health, psychometrics, evidence-based practices, Eastern psychology, men’s studies, and LGBTQ+.

For Jonathan’s current professional development, visit his LinkedIn profile at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonbklau

In 2019, Tina earned her Bachelor’s Degree (Honours) in Psychology with a minor in Counselling. During her Undergrad, Tina was a part of the Bee Cognition Lab at KPU, where she helped build the first virtual reality system for bees at KPU, alongside Dr. Levente Orban. This led her to do her Honours project: A marker-based closed-loop capable virtual reality system for bees. Where she conducted her Honours project researching bee’s flight trajectories in response to optic flow manipulations. In addition, Tina has worked as a Research Assistant for the GDP lab with Dr. Shayna Minosky, conducting learning environment studies.  

Research Interests include normative ethics, data analytics, motivational and cognitive processes, emotion regulation, and group dynamics.