Faculty / Staff
Faculty and Staff
Catherine Connelly

Dr. Catherine Connelly is Professor of Human Resources and Management at McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Business. She holds a Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Organizational Behaviour and is a member of the College of New Scholars of the Royal Society of Canada. Dr. Connelly conducts research on organizational effectiveness and worker performance, with a particular focus on workers with "non-standard" employment contracts: part-time workers, temporary agency workers, contractors, volunteers, and temporary foreign workers. Her work combines quantitative and qualitative research methods to examine the relationships between organizational structures and practices and employee attitudes and behaviors.
Dr. Connelly is currently studying the experiences of workers with disabilities and leads the Employment Team of the Canadian Disability Participation Project. Among her other ongoing projects are ones investigating employees’ use of different communication methods, knowledge sharing and knowledge hiding in organizations, and leadership style.
Her research is funded by SSHRC (the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council), CFI (the Canadian Foundation for Innovation), and MEDI (the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation).
Mailing Address
DSB-418
McMaster University
1280 Main Street West
Hamilton, ON, Canada
L8S 4M4
Current Students and Staff

Abeeda Pooja
Abeeda Pooja
Abeeda joined the PhD program in Management of Organizational Behaviour & Human Resources at the DeGroote School of Business in September 2015. Her research interests include employee attitudes and behaviour. She is particularly interested in studying how contextual, interpersonal, and individual factors inform employees’ help-giving and help-withholding behaviours in organizations.

Ali Lefcoe
Ali Lefcoe
Ali joined the PhD program at McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Business in September 2018. She completed her Masters in Industrial Relations and Human Resources (MIRHR) as well as a BSc in Psychology and HR at U of T. Her research interests include: emotion regulation and burnout; leadership; personality; organizational culture and accountability.

Anne St-Amand
Anne St-Amand
Anne has a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Toronto and an MA in Linguistics from the University of Ottawa. She is research coordinator for Dr. Catherine Connelly.

Daniel McLean
Daniel McLean
Daniel is a fifth year Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behaviour Honours student with a specialization in Mental Health. His research interests include disabilities as well as behavioural analysis.

Elaine Nguyen
Elaine Nguyen
Elaine is a fourth year student in the Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behaviour program, specializing in mental health. Her career/research interests are in clinical and counselling psychology, community development, and individuals with disabilities.
Isabelle Choi
Isabelle Choi
Isabelle is a fourth year Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour Honours student at McMaster University. She is enthusiastic about research within the realm of organizational psychology and human behaviour. Isabelle is highly interested about what workplace behaviours are efficient to create an effective business and aspires to go into Human Resources.

Jasneet Bains
Jasneet Bains
Jasneet is a fourth-year Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behaviour Honours student with a Specialization in Mental Health, at McMaster University. Her research interests include behaviour analysis, stress, and human memory. She is also interested in research with special populations and vulnerable groups.

Jennifer Ho
Jennifer Ho
Jennifer joined the PhD program in Management of Organizational Behaviour and Human Resources at McMaster University's DeGroote School of Business in September 2018. Her research interests include workplace diversity, employee well-being, occupational stress, workplace discrimination, and positive organizational behaviour.
Lily Martin
Lily Martin
Lily is a third year Arts & Science student specializing in Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behaviour. Broadly speaking, her research interests are how and why individuals do things the way they do. She emphasizes interdisciplinary and dynamic thinking and hopes to pursue management and psychology.

Max Manglal-Lan
Max Manglal-Lan
Max is currently in his 4th year of the Honours Psychology, Neuroscience, & Behaviour program while also pursuing a minor in Commerce. He studies and has a strong passion for organizational behaviour in addition to marketing and finance. Max is very ambitious and enjoys research as well as entrepreneurial environments.

Meera Patel
Meera Patel
Meera is a third year Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behaviour Honours student with a specialization in Mental Health. As a keen student, she is highly interested in learning how psychology can be applied in a variety of fields and daily life.

Megan Murphy
Megan Murphy
Megan is a PhD candidate in the Management of Organizational Behaviour and Human Resources (MOBHR) program at McMaster University. Her research interests include psychological contracts, formal mentoring programs, contingent work arrangements, stress, social network usage, and organizational deviance. Megan currently holds a SSHRC doctoral fellowship for her work on formal mentoring programs and psychological contracts.

Rory Macleod
Rory Macleod
Rory is a fourth year Psychology Neurosciencs and Behavior student, pursuing a minor in business. He studies organizational behavior and is interested in the application of psychology principles to the workplace with the goal of creating more efficient and enjoyable work environments.

Samantha Luxmikanthan
Samantha Luxmikanthan
Samantha is a fourth year Honours Human student specializing in Autism Behavioural Sciences. Her research interests involve disabilities and human behaviour and how they play as a factor through operations within an organization, allowing her to study this interest across various research fields.

Zhuoli Zheng
Zhuoli Zheng
Zhuoli is a third year student in Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour (Mental Health Specialization). Her research interests involve how to help people with disabilities and mental illnesses better adapt in society and promote people's awareness of mental health. She wants to pursue a career in clinical psychology or counselling psychology.
Former Students

Adam Buffett
Adam Buffett
Adam is a Commerce student in the Degroote School of Business at McMaster University, with a planned specialization in Finance and Accounting. Adam worked with Professor Connelly as a research assistant. His role included transcribing interview recordings as well as conducting online research about employment in Canada.

Ani Chénier
Ani Chénier
Ani holds an MA in Anthropology from McMaster University. She worked as a research coordinator for Dr. Catherine Connelly from August, 2015 to March, 2016.

Chanchal Bhandari
Chanchal Bhandari
Chanchal is a fifth year Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behaviour Honours student at McMaster University. She is highly interested in research revolving around human behaviour, especially in social contexts, allowing her to study it across various research areas.

Christa Wilkin
Christa Wilkin
Drs. Connelly and Wilkin have published three articles in highly regarded journals and two book chapters on non-standard work arrangements (e.g., volunteers; contingent work) and employee well-being (e.g., wellness initiatives; justice). Dr. Wilkin, a professor at York University, has work published in journals such as the Journal of Organizational Behavior, International Journal of Human Resource Management, and Personality and Individual Differences in the areas of non-standard relationships and well-being.

Gina Nguyen
Gina Nguyen
Gina is a fourth year Life sciences student at McMaster University, specializing in Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour. She is fascinated with all fields of research and especially appreciate interdisciplinary approaches!

Hufriya Kateli
Hufriya Kateli
Hufriya is a fourth year Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour Honours student at McMaster University. Her research interests involve learning about motivating operations in an organization, and how they affect employee productivity. Hufriya is also keen to understand the effects of negative feedback on employee morale and workplace satisfaction.

Jacqueline Chan
Jacqueline Chan
Jacqueline worked with Dr. Connelly for her undergraduate thesis project in Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour. Her thesis explored the effects of preparatory nonverbal behaviours on leadership effectiveness. She is interested in the social and cognitive perspectives of interpersonal relationships, and is particularly intrigued by the effects of implicit attitudes and cognitions on behaviours (and vice versa).

Joey Legere
Joey Legere
Joey researched the effects of stress in business settings and created custom software to process and interpret physiological stress data measured using EKG, GSR, and respiration effort sensor. His other research interests are diverse, and include web-based communication and collaboration, scalp electrophysiology, and performance / error monitoring. For more information about other projects he is involved in, visit http://brain.mcmaster.ca/.

Mahyar Garmsiri
Mahyar Garmsiri
Mahyar is studying in Memorial University of Newfoundland's Masters of Science in Management program with a specialization in Organizational Behaviour and Human Resources. His current projects involve familiarity and psychological well-being in the workplace, cyber workplace-deviance, and disability biases and feedback quality. While his current focuses are in business research, previous research experience has been in perceptual psychology (both in-person and online) and neuroscience, including working with biometric and EEG equipment.

Mona Zanhour
Mona Zanhour
Dr. Mona Zanhour is currently an Assistant Professor of Human Resource Management at California State University, Long Beach. As a doctoral student, Dr. Zanhour worked under the supervision of Dr. Connelly. In her dissertation, she examined the relationship between organizational work-family resources and work-family conflict and enrichment, mediated by balance self-efficacy. She is currently working with Dr. Connelly to explore training interventions aimed to increase balance self-efficacy and decrease stress associated with work-family conflict.

Monika Pobiedzinski
Monika Pobiedzinski
Monika is an Honours Commerce student at the DeGroote School of Business, focusing her degree towards finance and management. She began working for Professor Connelly in her first year as a data research clerk, and also worked as a research assistant. Working from audio and video recordings of interviews and experiments, and using standardized assessment tools like the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, she prepared data for analysis.

Samson Yeung
Samson Yeung

Sayaka Akisyama
Sayaka Akisyama
Sayaka worked with Dr. Connelly for her undergraduate thesis project in Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour. Her research examined leadership development through different leadership coaching styles. She is interested in human behaviours in the workplace.

Sina Farid
Sina Farid
Sina worked with Dr. Connelly to complete her honours thesis project as a fourth year Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behaviour student at McMaster University. Her thesis explored the effects of non-verbal behaviour on self-efficacy and leadership. Her interests include the effects of cognitive biases in the organizational setting and their related behavioural outcomes, specifically for managerial acquisition and promotion.

Sol Ji Kim
Sol Ji Kim
Sol Ji worked with Dr. Connelly for her Senior Honours Thesisis as a fourth year undergraduate student in Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour. Her research explored the effects of preparatory nonverbal behaviours, such as power posing, on leadership effectiveness.

Yiyu Shi
Yiyu Shi
Yiyu is a fourth year Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behaviour Honours student at McMaster University and she is working with Dr. Connelly for her Independent Lab Study. She is enthusiastic about all research projects, especially nonverbal behaviors and interpersonal relationships.