Team

Dr. Richard Gonzalez is the Amos N. Tversky Professor of Psychology and Statistics. He is the Director of the BSMC and the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the Institute for Social Research. He also holds appointments in Bioinformatics, the Center for Human Growth and Development, Ross School of Business/Marketing, the College of Engineering and the Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Gonzalez’ main research areas are methodology and judgement/decision making. You might see him around town on his bike as he enjoys meeting collaborators in their home environments.

Dr. Jacqui Smith is Research Professor at the Institute for Social Research and a Professor of Psychology. Dr. Smith is a Co-PI of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). Her main research areas focus on the heterogeneity of psychological functioning, well-being, and health in midlife and old age. Currently, her research focuses on subjective well-being after age 50, psychological vitality in the oldest-old, early-life and life course predictors of outcomes in later life, self-perceptions of aging, and cognitive aging.

Alicia joined the BioSocial Methods Collaborative in 2014. She oversees the life cycle of research projects as the Collaborative’s Research Process Manager. On a day-to-day basis, her work covers a wide range of activities including testing new physiological sensors for the lab, participating in research planning sessions, writing IRB applications, managing data in various programs, developing protocols, designing and programming surveys, and mentoring students. Her research interest is in public engagement with genetic information, but life at the Collaborative means she’s ready for anything!

Donna joined the BioSocial Methods Collaborative in fall of 2013. She is the participant engagement specialist for all the lab’s studies. Additionally, Donna manages the payroll and billing for the Collaborative and handles the “housekeeping” operations of the lab. Donna interacts with the Research Assistants in a variety of ways, including training, scheduling for the lab, and mentoring. Her most favorite part of the job, though, is interacting with the research participants, who are the heart of our research.

Natalie Leonard, MS is a Human-Environment Research Specialist as part of the BioSocial Methods Collaborative team. She received her BS of Psychology from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2018 and her MS of Architecture Research from the University of Michigan in 2019. Natalie’s interest is where psychology and architecture meet: How can architecture apply evidence-based, human-centered design? How might the design of our healthcare systems and environments change? She approaches human subjects research from an emphatic perspective: minding interactions between research staff, participants and the surrounding environment with implications for ethics, reproducibility and data quality.