People

Director: Stephanie A. Shields, Ph.D. - Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies

Professor Shields’ research focuses on the micropolitics of emotion, the use of one’s own or others’ emotions to assert or challenge status and power. Speaking from the Heart: Gender and the Social Meaning of Emotion (Cambridge, 2002), received the Association for Women in Psychology’s Distinguished Publication Award, as did her special issue of Sex Roles on intersectionality of social identities. She coordinates Penn State’s dual-title Ph.D. in Women’s Studies and Psychology. She has served as Director of Women’s Studies at Penn State and the University of California, Davis. She was founding director of the UC Davis Consortium for Research on Women and Gender. She is president of the Society for the Psychology of Women, Division 35 of the American Psychological Association.

Graduate Assistant: Matthew J. Zawadzki , M.S.

"Matthew works with Dr. Stephanie Shields (advisor) examining the effects of labeling another person's emotions, particularly when emotion labeling will be perceived as positive or negative, when emotion labeling is likely to occur, and how to thwart the negative effects of emotion labeling. For the past two years, Matthew has worked on the WAGES project as lead Research Assistant.  Among other duties, this work has entailed conducting focus groups and WAGES sessions with a variety of participants ranging from undergraduate students to tenured professors to administrators.  Along with Principal Investigator Dr. Stephanie Shields, Matthew has co-designed and administered two large-scale experimental studies to test the effectiveness of WAGES.  The results of this work has been presented at a number of venues and conferences, including the biennial meeting for the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues in which his poster won Honorable Mention for Best Poster Award.  Furthermore, this work has led to two co-authored journal articles, one currently in press and the other in preparation.  Matthew received a B.A. in Psychology and Philosophy at Iona College, and an M.A. in Quantitative Methods at Columbia University."