I've survived my first semester as a faculty member! They haven't kicked me out yet, so I must be doing something at least partially right...
But in all seriousness, the STATS Lab has been lucky to have an amazing first semester launch. Our LinkedIn newsletter is up to 761 subscribers, Instagram gets around 20k hits a month, and 88 of you are hopefully reading this email! Beyond that, we've celebrated:
- Getting featured with a news article on the CMC homepage
- About 100 live attendees on a Zoom webinar featuring STATS Lab research projects
- 24 students regularly attending our bi-weekly lab meetings discussing topics ranging from leadership to mediation & moderation, culminating in a celebratory brunch at my house last week
- Our team is a finalist for the Future of Work global research competition for a $3K prize to launch our escape room research project — the public is invited to vote here for their favorite team
- Generous funding coming in from the CMC Gould Center, Lowe Institute, and Open Academy to support our research and teaching initiatives
Read on to find out more about our plans for the Spring!
Recent Blog Posts
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They weren't kidding when they said the first semester flies by
Some personal reflections of lessons learned after my first semester here at Claremont McKenna College.
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What does leadership really mean?
In our latest research review, we discuss the challenges of defining what “leadership” really is — and how we can improve the science and practice of leadership styles.
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When the machines join the meeting room: How I-O psychologists are using AI
In our latest publication, we present empirical data on how (and to what degree) I-O psychologists are using Generative AI.
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Looking Ahead to Spring 2026
We may have had lots to celebrate this past semester, but there were also many challenges — a couple of declined grants, paper rejections, and personal challenges with running a large research lab. To help with lab management, going into the Spring, our lab will now have two positions.
The Research Associate position will be a more formal role where students will lead specific projects under my supervision, dedicating 7-10 hours per week to make substantial progress in research. I'm pleased to announce the following students have been selected as RAs for the Spring semester, along with their primary research assignment:
- Elis Shen (Pomona '28): MFC measures of vocational interests
- Julie Chung (CMC '28): experiment on predatory journals
- Ruel Lee (Pomona '28): qualitative interviews of early career callings
- Carmela Labarda (CMC '28): leadership in escape rooms
- Owen Keyt (CMC '28): AI and audio/visual data in escape rooms
- Melanie Haro-Cortes (CMC '28): experiment on predatory journals
- Lily Surjadinata (Harvey Mudd '28): NLP of Survivor TV show transcripts
- Nelson Hernandez (Pomona '28): NLP of Survivor TV show transcripts
In addition to these eight students, Jordan Nguyen (CMC '28), George Chan (CMC '29), Azra Karaman (CMC '29), and Joomi Park (CGU) will be continuing their work in the lab, funded through respective research centers on campus.
The remaining students in our lab will be committing to a 3-5 hours per week role, primarily attending weekly lab meetings and assisting on the aforementioned projects as needed. As a lab, we'll be engaging in learning activities ranging from reading and discussing foundational articles, to reviewing a journal article, to trying out analyses in R and Python.
Thank you to all the students who applied to these roles and were interested in joining the lab! I hope that the Spring becomes a more structured, rewarding, but also demanding experience in the STATS Lab to further student learning, make progress on research projects, and better inform the public about the work that we're doing.
Until next time,
Steven Zhou, Ph.D., SHRM-CP
Assistant Professor of Psychological Science
szhou@cmc.edu
