Faculty and Staff

Dr. Mary Bodvarsson

Assistant Professor of Psychology

Office: 304 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 WisconsinMadison.

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 the impact grandparents have on college students’ development. 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. 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. 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 individual differences and situational characteristics on leader emergence and employee creativity. 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: 320-308-3271Email: 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. She is also interested in the psychology of the Holocaust and the political psychology of dictatorships. Dr. Jazwinski’s teaching interests include social psychology, environmental and conservation psychology, altruism and prosocial behavior, the psychology of groups, psychology laboratory, psychology of women,and research design..

Dr. Jazwinski is very interested in having students work with her in her research areas. Please stop by to talk about research ideas.

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. Dr. Kulas has worked 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 people at work, but specific areas of interest include: psychological processes involved in responding to assessments, personality specification and measurement, and cross-disciplinary research. 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
Department Chairperson

Associate Professor of Psychology

Office: 102A Whitney House
Telephone: 320-308-2188
Email: jmmelcher@stcloudstate.edu

Joseph Melcher is a cognitive psychologist with interests in learning and memory. He is also interested in the acquisition of expertise, the psychology of human factors in design, everyday memory and eyewitness memory. He has done some research on the effects of speech recognition on the quality of students' writing and is currently doing research with students in the areas of satisfaction with choices, and in training working memory. He welcomes contact with students who would like to get involved in doing research in these areas. In his 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
Associate Professor of Psychology

Office: 308 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