St. Cloud State University

Dr. Mary Bodvarsson

Assistant Professor of Psychology

Office: 207 Whitney House
Telephone: 320-308-3215
Email: mcbodvarsson@stcloudstate.edu

Dr. Bodvarsson received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Educational Psychology, with an emphasis on cognition, learning, and development, from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. She is originally from Excelsior, Minnesota, and received her B.A. in Economics from St. Olaf College. Prior to attending graduate school, Dr. Bodvarsson worked in the corporate world for approximately 12 years as a software consultant, trainer, and ultimately training manager. She also spent 2 and 1/2 years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Benin, West Africa (where a friend aptly described her as teaching a subject she knew nothing about, in a language she couldn’t speak, in a part of the world she’d never been). Dr. Bodvarsson’s research interests include metacognition, cognitive load theory, memory processes, and technology in education.

Dr. Brenda Buswell
Assistant Professor of Psychology

Office:5A Whitney House
Telephone: 320-308-3096
Email: bnbuswell@stcloudstate.edu

Dr. Buswell received her degree in social psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dr. Marlene DeVoe
Professor of Psychology

Office: 204 Whitney House
Telephone: 320-308-5368
Email: mrdevoe@stcloudstate.edu
Web: http://web.stcloudstate.edu/mrdevoe/

Marlene DeVoe’s primary specialty area is in Life-Span Developmental Psychology. Her main research interest is in cognitive-affective development. Her current research is in cognitive-affective development as well as adult literacy and psychological aspects of reading text on the computer. She is involved with research on emotional reactions to the terrorist act on September 11 with several students. Teaching interests lie in the area of Life-Span Development (e.g., child, adolescence, adult), as well as seminars and research based courses on emotional development. Dr. DeVoe completed her undergraduate degree at Grand Valley State University, and then went to Wayne State University for both her M.S. and Ph.D. in Life-Span Developmental psychology.

Dr. Phil Godding (on leave; assigned to the dean's office)
Associate Professor of Psychology

Office: Whitney House
Telephone: 320-308-1527
Email: prgodding@stcloudstate.edu

Dr. Phil Godding graduated from Florida State University in 1986 with a degree in clinical psychology. He attended University of Minnesota-Morris for his B.S. and North Dakota State University for his M.S. For the past 15 years Dr. Godding has been teaching at the University of Mississippi Medical School and the University of Mississippi and Jackson VA Medical Centers Internship Consortium, where he received various teaching awards and honors. He has authored numerous publications and presentations in the areas of coping with chronic illness, neuropsychological changes due to aging and using personality measures to predict health care outcomes.

Dr. Godding sums up his teaching philosophy this way: "I had some great college and graduate school mentors, Drs. Ernie Kemble, Russ Glasgow and Bob Klepac. It was Ernie Kemble who taught me to feel passionately about teaching psychology, scholarship and enjoying life. He identified me out of an undergraduate research course as someone with "potential." I was invited into his lab where he taught me small animal surgery and histology. We kept the following schedule for two years: between classes we would read, and talk and plan for studies. During summer and quarter breaks we would work 16-hour days conducting studies and analyzing the data. During the tedious times of post-surgical animal recovery, data collection and histology we would talk about art, music, history, philosophy and literature while drinking horribly strong Lipton’s Iced Tea from plastic beakers. After the study was sent off for review he would hand me a book by Steinbeck or Kipling or Hemingway and we would each go camping for a week or two. Then back to the lab for more research and discussion of the books we’d just read.

"This cycle of passionate scholarly focus and liberal arts inspiration planted an indelible excitement about teaching and research within me. One of my main career goals is to search my classes for students that have "potential." I may not offer my students bad tea from plastic lab beakers, but I do hope to offer them a mixture of a passion for discovery and an integration of their liberal arts education."

Dr. Jody Illies
Associate Professor of Psychology

Office: 205 Whitney House
Telephone: 320-308-5772
Email: jjillies@stcloudstate.edu
Web: http://web.stcloudstate.edu/jjillies/

Jody Illies received his master's and doctoral degrees in industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology from the University of Nebraska. He completed his undergraduate degree at St. John's University (MN). Dr. Illies’ research interests include organizational problem solving and decision making, creativity and innovation, leadership, and the use of biographical data as an assessment tool. In his most recent studies, he has been exploring the influence of personal values on emergent and unethical leader behavior and the influence of individual differences and situational variables on risk-seeking behavior in business settings. If you find any of his research areas intriguing, or just want to talk about I-O or research in general, please contact Dr. Illies.

Dr. Chris Jazwinski
Professor of Psychology

Office: 209 Whitney House
Telephone: 320-308-3271
Email: chjazwinski@stcloudstate.edu
Web: http://web.stcloudstate.edu/chjazwinski/

Dr. Jazwinski received her Master's degree in clinical psychology from the University of Warsaw, Poland and her Ph.D. in social psychology from Purdue University. Dr. Jazwinski's scholarly interests lie in the area of social psychology, in particular altruism and helping. Her research is on victims’ responses to withheld assistance and social behavior in organizations. She is also interested in the psychology of the Holocaust. Dr. Jazwinski’s teaching interests include social psychology, altruism and prosocial behavior, the psychology of groups, psychology laboratory, psychology of women, research design, introductory psychology, and environmental psychology.

Dr. Jazwinski is very interested in having students work with her in her research areas, especially the social psychology of helping. Please stop by to talk about research ideas.

Dr. Kristen Kling
Associate Professor of Psychology

Office: 304 Whitney House
Telephone: 320-308-4070
Email:kckling@stcloudstate.edu

Dr. Kling’s interests span both Social and Developmental Psychology. Her primary research interest is the study of positive psychological functioning in aging populations. A specific example of such research is her dissertation, which focused on the influence of personality on the adjustment of aging women to community relocation. In a more recent project, Dr. Kling has joined a team of researchers who are conducting a national study of the quality of life of nursing home residents. Dr. Kling is also interested in gender and has published a meta-analysis of gender differences in self-esteem. Other research interests include: the self-concept, coping, psychological well-being, reactions to the wage gap, the use of standardized tests to predict academic achievement, and personality. Dr. Kling’s teaching interests include: personality, adult development, and psychology of women. Dr. Kling completed her undergraduate degree at Colgate University, and then went to the University of Wisconsin at Madison for both her M.S. and Ph.D. in Developmental psychology.

Dr. John Kulas
Assistant Professor of Psychology

Office: 303 Whitney House
Telephone: 320-308-3234
Email: jtkulas@stcloudstate.edu
Homepage: http://web.stcloudstate.edu/jtkulas

Dr. Kulas received his M.A. and Ph.D. in I/O Psychology from Northern Illinois University. He received his B.A. in Psychology from the University of Minnesota. At the time of his appointment, Dr. Kulas had acquired 3 years of formal applied I/O experience primarily working as a test publisher (NCS/London House), an internal I/O consultant (SBC Communications), and as an I/O team leader for a small management consulting firm (Corporate Psychology Resources). Dr. Kulas is interested in any practical research applied to issues of human resource management, but specific areas of interest include: criterion-space development/ expansion, modern psychometric techniques and theory, affirmative action, and newcomer socialization. Students interested in any of these areas of research, or with a desire to pursue their own research questions related to workers and/or organizations, are encouraged to contact Dr. Kulas (he is a self-admitted sucker for new research projects).

Dr. Joseph Melcher
Associate Professor of Psychology

Office: 1C Whitney House
Telephone: 320-308-2188
Email: jmmelcher@stcloudstate.edu

Joseph Melcher is a cognitive psychologist with research interests in the areas of learning and memory. His most recent work (dissertation) explored how two different methods of learning (conceptual versus perceptual) form memory traces that are more or less susceptible to the verbal overshadowing effect (whereby putting perceptual memories into words impairs later recognition. He is also interested in the acquisition of expertise, the psychology of human factors in design, everyday memory and eyewitness memory, and cognitive aging. He is working on developing a new line of research into the effects of speech recognition on the quality of students' writing. He would particularly like to work with students who would like to get involved in doing research in any of these areas. In his shrinking spare time enjoys outdoor activities, bicycling, mushrooming, gardening, and music of all kinds.

Gerald Mertens
Assistant Professor of Psychology

Office: 11 Whitney House
Telephone: 320-308-2138
Email: gcmertens@stcloudstate.edu

Dr. Daren Protolipac
Coordinator of Industrial-Organizational Graduate Program and

Assistant Professor of Psychology

Office: 1B Whitney House
Telephone: 320-308-5750
Email: dsprotolipac@stcloudstate.edu

Dr. Protolipac received his M.A. and Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational (I/O) Psychology from Northern Illinois University. He is originally from Chicago, Illinois, and received his B.S. in Psychology from Northern Illinois University. His research areas include content- and criterion-related selection measure development and evaluation; personality influences on organizational, team, and individual outcomes; cross-level off-the-job interactions; team selection methods on work-team outcomes; psychometric techniques and theory; and training and organizational development. His most recent project explored the impact of current mood states on the accuracy and generalizability of Angoff cutoff score judgments using a generalizability framework. His teaching interests lie in the area of training and organizational development, psychometrics, organizational behavior, and personnel selection. Students interested in any of these avenues of research, or with personal interests in research related to any aspect of organizational functioning and/or members of organizations are encouraged to contact Dr. Protolipac. He is always looking to create new research teams and projects.

Dr. Zoa Rockenstein
Professor of Psychology

Office: 203 Whitney House
Telephone: 320-308-4158
Email: zlrockenstein@stcloudstate.edu
Homepage: http://web.stcloudstate.edu/zlrockenstein/

Dr. Zoa Rockenstein teaches Psychology of Creativity, Honors Creative Thinking, Managing Innovation, Psychology of Women, Research in the Psychology of Women, and Honors Psychology of Gifted Women. She also co-ordinates the Psychology Department’s peer advising program. Her past assignments have included Director of the University Honors Program, senior author and project director of a FIPSE-funded interdisciplinary first-year honors curriculum, and Psychology Department Chair.

Dr. Rockenstein earned a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Georgia. in 1985 with a major emphasis in intellectual giftedness and minors in business management and creativity.

Dr. Rockenstein especially enjoys sharing her original methods for developing creativity in the business sector. She has taught management seminars in creativity at the Creative Problem Solving Institute in Buffalo, NY. Her corporate clients include Kodak, DuPont, and 3M. She has served as keynote speaker for state, national, and international conferences in business, government, and education.

Dr. Rockenstein authored the textbook Training the Creative/Intuitive Mind and has contributed chapters and journal articles to publications that support intellectual giftedness, creativity, leadership, and women's issues. Currently, Dr. Rockenstein is directing The Athena Project: Creating Pathways to Eminence for Gifted Women and Girls. Her work in this area resulted in an invitation to speak at Oxford University in England and will soon be published.

In her leisure time, Dr. Rockenstein enjoys organic gardening, bluegrass music, quilting, and throwing tennis balls for her tireless German shepherd dogs Venus and Serena.

Dr. Leslie Valdes
Chairperson
Associate Professor of Psychology

Office: 102 Whitney House
Telephone: 320-308-3092
Email: lavaldes@stcloudstate.edu

Dr. Valdes teaches the introductory and research oriented courses in addition to courses in her area of expertise, cognitive psychology. Her research interests include visual attention, memory, and effective use of computers in the classroom. She is also an advisor to the local chapter of Psi Chi, the national honor society for psychology majors.

Ms. Linda Williams
Office Manager

Office: 102 Whitney House
Telephone: 320-308-5659
Email: llwilliams@stcloudstate.edu