Faculty and Staff

Dr. David Bourgeois

Dr. Bourgeois' research interests include social, political, and cross-cultural Psychology as well as youth engagement. Prior to joining the Psychology Department at Saint Mary’s, Dr. Bourgeois worked as a researcher for various non-profit organizations, including the United Way of Greater St. Louis (Missouri) and the Federation of French-Canadian Youth in Ottawa (Ontario).  Dr. Bourgeois currently volunteers with Peaceful Schools International, a Canadian non-profit organization. 

Dr. Margherita Cameranesi

Dr. Jim Cameron

Jim Cameron (Ph.D., York University) has taught at Saint Mary’s University since 1999. His research focuses on social identity and intergroup relations, psychological well-being, collective action, and globalization. Dr. Cameron regularly supervises undergraduate students, and currently teaches courses on introductory statistics, social psychology, and intergroup relations.

Dr. Patrick Carolan

Patrick completed his PhD in Cognitive and Neural Sciences Psychology at Simon Fraser University in 2017, and joined the SMU faculty in Fall 2018. His teaching interests include research design, data analysis, emotion, attention, and consciousness. His research examines the interactions of affect and impulsivity with visual attention and working memory from a neuroscience perspective – one that seeks to map psychological concepts to measurable neurological mechanisms. Throughout his graduate career this has been primarily with event-related potential electroencephalography (ERP/EEG) and psychometrics. However in his postdoctoral work, he has also begun looking at early childhood experience and development in cross-cultural environments and collaborative community settings.

Dr. Steven Carroll

Dr. Carroll is a Senior Lecturer, and has been working for the Department of Psychology since 2012.  He has a general interest in mathematical psychology, cognitive modelling, psychophysics, and measurement and scaling. Steve is particularly interested in mathematical and computer models of decision-making processes.

Dr. Carroll’s website can be found at: http://www.psnap.ca

Dr. Sarah Carver

Sarah joined the Industrial-Organizational Psychology department in July 2024 as an Assistant Professor. Prior to joining Saint Mary's University, she received her PhD in Industrial-Organizational Psychology at Western University in February 2024 and was a postdoctoral associate at the Ivey Business School in the Organizational Behaviour department from October-June 2023. Her broad research interests involve facilitating healthy, safe workplaces, with a specific focus on workplace mistreatment, (un)ethical behaviour at work, and leader character and development.

Sarah is an advocate for work-integrated learning in her teaching and strives to create a stimulating and inclusive learning environment that encourages active engagement and intellectual curiosity. In addition to her academic background, she draws on her practical experience in the consulting industry to promote the application of theoretical concepts to real-world organizational challenges.

Dr. Leanna Closson

Leanna received her PhD from the University of British Columbia in 2011 and subsequently was a postdoctoral researcher at Carleton University. In 2012, Leanna joined the SMU Department of Psychology where she teaches courses in developmental psychology. Leanna’s research explores the social development of children and youth, with a focus on peer relationships. Some of the topics she studies include understanding the function and impact of peer group social status (e.g., popularity), social competence, aggression, and victimization.

Dr. Nicole Conrad

Dr. Nicole Conrad is a Professor in the Department of Psychology, where she has taught since 2005. She received her Ph.D. degree in Experimental Psychology from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario (2002). Most of her previous and current research relates to the broad area of reading acquisition. Within this broad area, her research focuses on how memory is involved in reading acquisition and skilled reading, how children acquire the linguistic and cognition information necessary to become skilled readers, and the nature of the beneficial relation between reading and spelling.

Dr. Arla Day

Dr. Arla Day is a Canada Research Chair and Full Professor in Industrial/Organizational Psychology at Saint Mary's University, and a Fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association.

Arla is a founding member of two research and community outreach centres: The CN Centre for Occupational Health and Safety and the Centre for Leadership Excellence. Arla chairs the Nova Scotia Psychological Healthy Workplace Program committee, and she is on the Steering Committee for the American Psychological Association’s Business of Practice Network, which oversees the state, provincial, and national healthy workplace awards and programs.

Dr. Day currently teaches graduate level courses in Psychometrics (test validation and development) and Organizational Psychology, and her past teaching has included Personnel Psychology, Statistics, and Introduction to Psychology.

http://www.arladay.ca/

Dr. Maryanne Fisher

Dr. Maryanne Fisher is a Full Professor in the Department of Psychology , where she has worked since 2004, Affiliate Faculty at the Kinsey Institute in Bloomington, Indiana, and Santamarian Research Chair .She received her PhD in Experimental Psychology from York University in Toronto (2004), her MSc in Psychology from McMaster University in Hamilton (2002), and her BA (summa cum laude) from York University (1997). She has published over 90 peer-reviewed journal articles, primarily related to women’s evolved psychology, and has edited The Oxford handbook of women and competition (2017) and co-edited Evolution’s empress: Darwinian perspectives on the nature of women (2013), both published by Oxford University Press. Her primary areas of research interest are women and competition, mating and relationship behaviours, evolutionary analyses of cultural artefacts, and the ways that feminist scholarships and evolutionary perspectives of human behaviour may be integrated. She is an award-winning teacher, as she was a recipient of the Association of Atlantic Universities Distinguished Teacher Award in 2016, and the Father Stewart Medal for Excellence in Teaching from Saint Mary’s University in 2014, along with several other student-nominated awards from the Saint Mary’s University Students Association.

http://maryannefisher.ca/

Dr. Mark Fleming

Dr. Mark Fleming is the CN Professor of Safety Culture. He received his Bachelor’s in Psychology and Master’s in Human Factors from Aberdeen University and his PhD in Psychology from The Robert Gordon University in Scotland. Mark has nearly 20 years of experience in industrial health and safety management in high hazard industries including the offshore oil and gas, nuclear power, petrochemical, power generation and construction. He is dedicated to developing practical and valid tools to assist organisations to prevent harm.

Currently, Dr. Fleming’s research includes investigating methods for measuring and improving safety culture, safety motivation, safety leadership and rail safety. He advises many Canadian and international organisations (e.g. International Atomic Energy Agency) on safety culture assessment and improvement. Through his work, Dr. Fleming hopes to provide best practice guidelines to industry and criteria for successful safety programs. He seeks to translate his work on safety culture into usable practices and guidelines by producing practical tools such as Changing Minds Guide and the Cultural Maturity Model.

http://smu-facweb.smu.ca/~mfleming/web/

Dr. Debra Gilin

Dr. Gilin's training is in Industrial/Organizational Psychology focused on what fosters productive/healthy versus unproductive/unhealthy conflict in the workplace. Her research focuses on organizational conflict, negotiation, and mediation, the implications of conflict for work stress and well-being, how personality and thinking styles influence conflict handling, inter- and intra- group conflict dynamics, and organizational change interventions.

Recent projects have examined the distinct operation of cognitive perspective-taking versus empathy in conflictual interactions, how to decrease incivility among workers in high-stress work environments (i.e., nursing) over the long-term, and how disrespectful work group norms can hasten the effects of work stressors on physical and mental employee strain. Debra has a strong interest in applying basic social psychological research to real organizational problems, and enjoy teaching, learning about, and using advanced statistical methodologies such as structural equations modeling and hierarchical linear modeling.

Dr. Camilla Holmvall

Camilla received her Ph.D. degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the University of Waterloo in 2003 and joined Saint Mary's University in July of 2003. She is an Associate Professor with a cross-appointment between the departments of Psychology and Management. Her research primarily focuses on issues of organizational justice and interpersonal mistreatment in the workplace.

Dr. Jason Ivanoff

Dr. Ivanoff received his B.Sc. in 1997 and his M.A. in 1998 from the University of Guelph.   He completed his Ph.D. in 2003 from Dalhousie University.  After a 3-year postdoctorate fellowship at Vanderbilt University, he joined the Department of Psychology at Saint Mary’s University in 2006.  He is currently an adjunct professor at Dalhousie University.  Using the tools of cognitive neuroscience (e.g., psychophysics, electrophysiology, and functional magnetic resonance imaging), Dr. Ivanoff studies the temporal dynamics of thought and action.

Dr. Kevin Kelloway

A native of New Waterford, NS. Kevin is a graduate of Dalhousie (B.Sc. Honours Psychology), Saint Mary’s (M.Sc. in Applied Psychology) King’s (MFA in Creative NonFiction) and Queen’s (PhD in Organizational Psychology) universities. He teaches courses in organizational and occupational health psychology as well as courses in research methodology and statistics. Kevin is a Fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, the International Association for Applied Psychology and the Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology.  He is a former President of the Canadian Psychological Association. His research interests include leadership and occupational health psychology.

Dr. Lucie Kocum

Dr. Robert Konopasky

Dr. Konopasky joined the faculty at Saint Mary’s University in 1972 and is now a professor of psychology. His primary research interests are forensic psychology, especially methods of establishing cause of damages in civil suits. Dr. Konopasky has been qualified as an expert witness in psychology, has examined defendants who faced various criminal proceedings and provided the Courts with reports and testimony. He has also been qualified as an expert in civil matters and provided testimony and reports on damages because of sexual assault. Dr. Konopasky has been qualified as an expert by adjudicative labour boards and provided reports and testimony regarding plaintiffs facing disciplinary hearings. Apart from his interest in forensic psychology, Dr. Konopasky has investigated the use and impact of technology in the classroom.

Dr. Eden-Raye Lukacik

Raye is an assistant professor of I/O psychology and joined the department at Saint Mary’s University in 2022. She received her PhD from the University of Calgary. Her work focuses on recruitment and selection including how technology is used to interview and assess candidates, how people search for jobs and how organizations recruit them, and how people use deception. 

Dr. Marc Patry

Marc Patry joined the Psychology Department at Saint Mary's University in 2005. His current research includes work on law and public policy, correctional psychology, and teaching and learning.

http://smu-facweb.smu.ca/~mpatry/

Dr. Nicolas Roulin

Nicolas Roulin is a Professor of I/O Psychology. He received his BS and MS in Management from the University of Lausanne and his PhD in I/O Psychology from the University of Neuchatel (both in Switzerland). Before moving to Saint Mary’s in 2017, he worked at the University of Lausanne and the University of Manitoba. His research is focused on personnel selection. He is particularly interested in applicant impression management and faking during the selection process, employment discrimination, and how to use new technologies (e.g., social media) as selection tools. He work has been published in journals such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Organizational Psychology Review, or Journal of Business Ethics. He also recently published the book “The Psychology of Job Interviews”, which offers an extensive review of the academic literature and translates it into a series of evidence-based recommendations for practitioners and job seekers.

https://atlanticpersonnelselection.com/

Dr. Steven Smith

Steven M. Smith, Ph.D. is a Professor of Psychology. BA, Bishop's University (1995); M.A. and Ph.D. Queen's University (1997; 2000). Dr. Smith’s current research program involves a number of issues related to eyewitness identification, confession evidence, interpretation of recent Supreme Court decisions, the impact of media on public opinion, and the role of messaging in addiction and unhealthy behaviors, including gambling. He has published his research in such journals as Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Journal of Applied Psychology, Psychology Crime & Law, Law and Human Behavior, Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, and Psychology, Public Policy and Law. His research has been supported by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, The Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and The Nova Scotia Health Research Foundation, and several other organizations.

Dr. Skye Stephens

Skye Stephens joined the Department of Psychology as an Assistant Professor in 2016. She completed her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Ryerson University and her predoctoral psychology internship at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton. She has research and clinical interests in Clinical-Forensic Psychology. To date, her research has focused on sexual offending, specifically the role of atypical sexual interests in victim selection and sexual recidivism. Her other research interests are: paraphilias and hypersexuality in forensic and non-forensic populations; sexual violence prevention; criminal careers and desistance in those who have committed sexual offences; and the assessment and treatment of psychosis in forensic populations.

https://skyestephens.wordpress.com/

Dr. Veronica Stinson

Dr. Stinson joined the faculty at Saint Mary's University in 1996 and is now a professor of psychology with research interests and experience in legal/forensic psychology. Recent research projects examine social cognitive factors that influence how people make decisions when they have to recall or recognize someone (for example, when someone witnesses a crime or accident), in the context of a police interview or interrogation, and in the context of a small group decision making task (for example, juror decision-making). She has worked on high-profile civil and criminal cases in the US and provided expert testimony in Canada.

Dr. Meg Ternes

Dr. Meg Ternes joined the Psychology Department as an Assistant Professor in July 2014, after working for several years for the Correctional Service of Canada’s research branch. Meg completed her B.A. at St. Francis Xavier University in 2001, then went on to complete an M.A. (2003) and Ph.D. (2009) in Forensic Psychology at the University of British Columbia. Her research interests include substance use and addiction, correctional psychology, credibility assessment, eyewitness memory, and investigative interviewing.

http://smu-facweb.smu.ca/~mternes/

Part-Time Faculty

Prof. Gregory Anderson

Dr. Marcie Balch

Prof. Tanya Bilsbury

As a teacher, I strive to enact three values: to be competent, caring, and ethical. These values are as stars by which I guide my path. When I make mistakes, when I trip and fall, I look up to them, pick myself up, and follow their light again. Since I began my teaching career in 2007, I have taught at Dalhousie, Saint Mary’s, Mount Allison, and Mount Saint Vincent universities. I am a passionate advocate for student success, humanistic psychology and management education, and social justice, including the labor rights of academic workers. I serve on the Department’s Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (EDIA) Committee.

Dr. Carolyn Birnie-Porter

Dr. Marc Blumberg

Dr. Blumberg was previously employed as the psychologist for the Pediatric Hematology/Oncology and Nephrology Services for the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  Prior to coming to the IWK, Dr. Blumberg was the supervising psychologist for the Behavioral Pediatrics Clinic of the Mailman Center for Child Development, Miami, Florida.  He was also the psychologist for the Children's Oncology Service at Jackson Memorial.  In addition to his clinical responsibilities, Dr. Blumberg was an Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the University of Miami School of Medicine, Jackson Memorial Hospital, Miami, Florida, where he was very active in the behavioral medicine training program for pediatric residents.  

Dr. Blumberg has taught a variety of graduate and undergraduate psychology courses at Universities throughout North America, including Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the University of Miami, in Miami, Florida, Mount Saint Vincent University, and Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  Dr. Blumberg currently teaches psychology courses at Saint Mary's University in Halifax.  Undergraduate and graduate psychology courses taught have included Counselling & Psychotherapy, Behavior Problems in Children, Child Psychopathology, Adolescent Development, and Interviewing and Assessment of Children. 

Dr. Ryan Cook

Dr. Ryan Cook completed his Masters and PhD in I/O Psychology at SMU from 2017-2024. Now, he is an Industrial/Organizational Psychologist with Canadian Nuclear Laboratories and continues to teach and continue research part-time. His current work primarily focuses on the psychosocial challenges of spaceflight, including the assessment of astronauts and astronaut candidates, as well as other high-consequence nuclear positions. Other work/research areas include assessment workplace psychopathy, social media us in selection, bias toward stereotypes which are not legally protected (e.g., tattoos, previous work in stigmatized industries) and generally anything related to personnel assessment and hiring.

Prof. Stewart Downing

Dr. Paul Freeman

Dr. Freeman is a registered clinical psychologist working in both public and private mental health practice.  He has taught over 60 courses at Saint Mary’s University since 2007, including Introduction to Psychology, Introduction to Personality Psychology, both Psychopathology courses and Interpersonal Relationships.  He has previously taught at Mount Saint Vincent University, University of Manitoba and Red River College in Winnipeg. In his over 20 years with Dartmouth Community Mental Health and Addictions Services, Dr. Freeman has been actively involved in individual and group psychotherapy and diagnostic assessment, as well as clinical training and supervision of staff and psychology students.  He held the position of Director of Clinical Training for the Capital District Mental Health Psychology Internship Program from 2008 to 2014. Dr. Freeman is not engaged in research activities at this time.

Dr. Bernadette Gatien

Dr. Gatien holds a master’s in applied psychology and was the first person to graduate from the Industrial/Organizational Psychology Ph.D. program at Saint Mary’s University. She has been working and teaching in the field of I/O Psychology since 2005. Dr Gatien enjoys teaching various courses at both the graduate and undergraduate level on topics including leadership, human factors, organizational development, training and development and the psychology of learning. Dr Gatien co-authors a textbook on the topic of Occupational Health and Safety which is currently being used by various universities and colleges across Canada. Dr. Gatien’s research and work experience expands the public and private sector including construction, transportation, utility, IT, and health care industries. Dr. Gatien is a sits on the Board of Directors AWARE-NS and is a member of the CN Centre for Occupational Health and Safety.  

Dr. Andrea Hebb

Dr. Andrea Hebb earned her bachelor's degrees (Health Education, Kinesiology, and Psychology) from Dalhousie University and her MSc and PhD (Neuroscience) from Carleton University. She pursued postdoctoral training in neurobiology, biochemistry, and pharmacology at the University of Ottawa and Dalhousie University. Her research  investigated putative therapeutic genetic targets for the diagnosis and treatment of neurobiological diseases. Dr. Hebb is the inventor on two patents and has published more than 30 papers and several major review papers and book chapters. Dr. Hebb is a research scientist with the Division of Neurosurgery at Dalhousie University and holds a part time faculty position at Saint Mary's University, where she teaches undergraduate classes in child development, disability, neuroscience, neurobiology, pharmacology, and addiction.

Dr. Karen Kipper

Dr. Kipper completed her Ph.D. in clinical psychology at York University. She completed her undergraduate and master's degrees at Lakehead University, including a specialization in gerontology. Her doctoral research focused on the spousal bereavement of men aged 60 and older. She has taught courses on psychopathology, personality, and health psychology at Saint Mary's University, and personality and the psychology of adulthood and aging at Mount Saint Vincent University.

Prof. Todd Leader

In response to the fact that he was bored to death by Intro Psychology when he was a student in Cape Breton a couple hundred years ago, Todd jumped at the chance to start teaching at SMU in 1990, so he could make the subject fun, interesting, relatable, and useful. He never left. His student-centered teaching style has earned him the 2014 Excellence in Teaching Award (Faculty of Arts), and the 2017 Overall Excellence in Teaching Award, from the Saint Mary’s University Students’ Association. He was also one of the developers and original instructors of the Graduate Certificate in Mental Health and Addictions at Dalhousie University.

In addition, with a lengthy full-time career in public-sector leadership, Todd has developed experiential success-based expertise, which he builds into all his teaching. He has been consulted by governments and other organizations across Canada in many sectors including Healthcare, Public Health, Indigenous Healthcare, Education, Justice, Child and Youth Care, Long-term Care, community non-profits, political parties, and the private sector. Health services under his leadership have also earned two International Best Practice awards, and a leadership award for Excellence in Women’s Health.

Todd is a Registered Social Worker and a Registered Social/Community Psychologist. He has been a member of the Nova Scotia Ministerial Advisory Panel on Innovation in Mental Health and Addictions, President of the Public Health Association of Nova Scotia, President of the Association of Psychologists of Nova Scotia, Vice President of the Nova Scotia College of Social Workers, a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Public Health Association, and his volunteer leadership contribution to his community has been recognized by a declaration in the Nova Scotia Legislature.

Todd is especially passionate about influencing people’s mental health experiences through systemic change. His book It’s Not About Us; The Secret to Transforming the Mental Health and Addiction System in Canada, which is based on a true story of successful system transformation, continues to influence client-centered leadership and change across Canada. Todd is currently writing a second book about living through a temporary, but life-threatening, medication-induced mental illness several years ago, and his analysis of the stigma and discrimination he experienced from professional, academic, and government organizations. The book will use these experiences to identify individual and systemic changes that can be made to improve people’s mental health experiences.

You can visit Todd’s website at www.leader-development.ca.

Prof. Chris Mahar

Dr. Karen McDonald

Prof. Kim O'Neil

Dr. Julie Quinn

Dr. Kimberly Robinson

Prof. Mehdi Salimian

Dr. Tabatha Thibault

Adjunct Faculty

Dr. Derek Fisher

Dr. Lori Francis

Dr. Francis joined the department psychology at Saint Mary's University as an assistant professor in 2002. She received a PhD in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the University of Guelph (2002). Dr. Francis has also studied at McMaster University (M.Sc., 1998) and St. Francis Xavier University (B.Sc. Honours, 1996). Her research interests include occupational health and safety, organizational justice, and unions. Her current organizational research interests can be grouped in three major categories. A brief description of each of these areas and examples of the work she is doing are provided below. Currently Dr. Francis is the Vice-President Academic and Provost, at MSVU

Occupational Health and Safety

Dr. Francis does research pertaining to well-being in the workplace, including workplace stress and strain and organizational stress prevention initiatives. Curremtly she is involved in a funded three year longitudinal study of Nova Scotia employees and employers - examining such issues as prevalent stressors, the experience of stress, and the utility of existing intervention programs.

She is also involved in a number of collaborative projects in the area of worker safety. In these projects we are investigating the factors that impact the safety related attitudes that employees develop.

Organizational Justice

Another aspect of her research program examines factors related to fairness in the workplace. In particular, Dr. Francis considers the impact of unfair outcomes, procedures and treatment at work on various employee outcomes. Currently she is most interested in the impact of injustice on employee health.

Unionism

Along with a number of colleagues, Dr. Francis is involved in a line of research on unionism and protest behaviour. In this ongoing series of studies they are looking at the factors that predict of participation in protest activities (such as strikes).

Dr. Christine Lackner

My research combines methods of developmental psychology and neuroscience to study individual differences in self-regulation and executive functioning during adolescence and early adulthood. These are times of major development to these skills and times when extensive individual differences can be observed. I record event-related potentials (ERPs) from participants’ scalps while they perform simple computer tasks. Furthermore, I focus on how these neural measures can help explain some of the wide variation in individuals' behavior. For example, why some adolescents consistently engage in dangerous behaviour, while others sail through adolescence without any trouble at all. This is not to say that environmental factors (e.g., family, peers, etc.) do not play a role in these individual differences; in fact, they play a large role! Recently I have been focusing on how adverse childhood experiences (e.g., abuse, death of a loved one, experiencing a natural disaster) can have lasting impact on brain and cognition. Notably, these environmental factors can simultaneously influence both the neural factors and the behavioural outcomes. The complex relationships among all of these variables are not overlooked in my research.

Dr. Moira Law

Dr. Dayna Lee-Baggley

Dr. Catherine Loughlin

Dr. Tammy Mahar

Dr. Mahar is an Adjunct Professor and has been an instructor for Department since 2007. She obtained a BA with honours in Psychology, MSc in Applied Psychology, and PhD in Industrial/Organizational Psychology at Saint Mary’s University. The focus of her BA was on clinical, counselling, personality, and behavioral psychology. During her MSc, Dr. Mahar worked with the Canadian Forces Leadership Institute. She also was the Academic and Vocational Advisor, a teaching assistant, and a lab instructor for the Psychology Department. After graduating, she was hired as the Data Analyst for the Halifax Regional Centre for Education for four years before shifting to teaching, consulting, and completing her PhD. Currently, Dr. Mahar teaches, operates a performance management consultancy, and conducts research. She was the first researcher to demonstrate the validity of measuring peak performance in typical workplaces. Her current research program involves validating a multidimensional model of peak performance, with special attention on self-mastery, expertise, work passion, optimal functioning, motivation, goal-setting, self-efficacy, mindfulness, resilience, transformational leadership, organizational culture, and dynamic workplaces (e.g., remote, performing artists, athletes, etc.).  

Dr. Jennifer Khoury

Dr. Pamela Yates

Pamela Yates, Ph.D, R. Psych is an Adjunct Professor and Part-Time Instructor. BA (Honours) Saint Mary's University (1987); M.A.(with Distinction) and Ph.D. Carleton University (1990; 1996).