IPSC Thesis Students
Dr. Steele does not anticipate accepting any additional thesis students for the 2023-2024 academic year.
To apply to conduct a senior thesis with Dr. Steele in the IPSC lab please email your resume, transcript (unofficial is fine), and a writing sample to Dr. Steele. Please note that, except in unusual circumstances, only students with a minimum of a B+/A average are given full consideration. Students with experience in our IPSC lab are typically given top priority.
We strive to create a lab culture that values, respects, and supports each student’s perspectives and contributions, and that aims to ensure that each lab member is able to reach their full research potential. We recognize that systemic racism serves as an ongoing barrier to equity, diversity, and inclusion among BIPOC students. We also recognize that discrimination based on race, religion, age, gender and gender identity, socioeconomic status, physical and mental disabilities, and among LBGTQ2+ community members continues. We welcome and encourage the diverse perspectives and lived experiences of our student body and broader society and we want these voices represented in the research that we conduct in the lab. As such, we particularly encourage students from the communities noted above to apply.
Students from the IPSC lab have entered graduate programs in social psychology, clincial psychology, Education, business as well as medical and law school. They often also earn prestigious OGS and SSHRC awards. The majority of our thesis students have been co-authors on poster presentations made at international conferences and on publication submissions.
If you would be interested in completing a thesis in the IPSC laboratory during the 2023-2024 academic year, and you have at least a B+ average, you might also consider joining our lab as a volunteer research assistant for the upcoming academic year or during the summer. For more information on how to gain volunteer research experience in the lab, please see the research assistant and independent study sections of this website. Paid positions are sometimes available to York students through the RAY program; please see the York student employment website for more information.
Students who conduct a thesis in the IPSC laboratory are often paired with a graduate student mentor and are expected to attend bi-weekly lab meetings. Thesis students in our lab are strongly encouraged to start into their thesis project over the summer to help ensure that they are ready to start running participants in early fall. Students with an interest in pursuing graduate studies are particularly encouraged to apply.
2023-2024
Shyamaly Vasuthevan
Thesis:
Graduate Student Mentor: Kayla Robinson
2022-2023
Ali Mohamud
Thesis: Exploring Bias Awareness Among Undergrads at York University: A Cross-Sectional Snapshot
Graduate Student Mentor: Erik Allen
Kayla Robinson
Thesis: Life Satisfaction, Subjective Social Status of Family and Black-Related Collective Action Intentions in Black and Non-Black Adolescents
2021-2022
Julia Sebastien
Thesis: Science or Not Science? The Impact of Gender- and Race-Science Stereotypes on Associations with Asian women
Jessica Soliman
Thesis: Understanding and Improving Bicultural Identity Integration
2020-2021
Joey Si
Thesis: Assessing Math Stereotypes of Asian Women
Graduate Student Mentor: Christina Lapytskaia Aidy
2019-2020
Bahar Mashhadi
Thesis: Asian or female? How social categorization shapes math-gender stereotyping of Asian women
Graduate Student Mentor: Christina Lapytskaia Aidy
2017-2018
Emily Mastragostino
Thesis: Where does the apple fall? Examining implicit and explicit math-gender stereotyping of adolescents and their parents
Graduate Student Mentor: Christina Lapytskaia
2016-2017
Hamza Baksh
Thesis: Investigating the effects of ostracism on implicit and explicit racial biases
Graduate Student Mentor: Meghan George
Anjali Wisnarama
Thesis: Print news and its ability to influence racial attitudes
Graduate Student Mentor: Christina Lapytskaia
2015-2016
Jacob Schlosser
Thesis: The effect of racialized police violence on racial attitudes
Jacob will begin Law School at Queen's University in the fall of 2016.
Graduate Student Mentor: Meghan George
2014-2015
Tracy Fabri
Thesis: Smiling or Black? The Effect of Emotion Salience on Implicit Attitudes. Tracy's thesis project was part of a published paper that can be found here: http://www.yorku.ca/steeleje/research/PDF/Steele_et_al_SC_2018.pdf She is now in the clinical psychology program here at York University.
Graduate Student Mentor: Meghan George
Afsaneh Raissi
Thesis: Are We All Equal When We Smile? Examining the Impact of Emotional Expression on Racial Prejudice
*WINNER of the 2015 W. B. Templeton Honours Thesis Award for the best thesis in the Department of Psychology at York University and a Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) Certificate of Academic Excellence*
Graduate Student Mentor: Meghan George
2013-2014
Maria Iankilevitch
Thesis: Examining children's implicit racial attitudes
Maria will begin graduate studies in social psychology at the University of Toronto in the fall of 2014.
Graduate Student Mentor: Francine Karmali
Arvin Jagayat
Thesis: Decreasing implicit racial bias
Arvin will begin graduate studies in social psychology at Ryerson University in the fall of 2015.
Graduate Student Mentor: Meghan George
2011-2012
Jonathan Canzio
Thesis: The development of implicit race bias: What about the minority?
Jonathan completed his B.Ed. in 2013.
Graduate Student Mentor: Amanda Williams and Corey Lipman
Iljana Kasi
Thesis: Look at me when I’m talking to you! The effect of eye contact on cognitive depletion in intergroup interactions
Iljana will begin graduate studies in audiology at Dalhousie University in the fall of 2013.
Graduate Student Mentor: Yumi Sakamoto
Amanda Sharples
Thesis: You’re mean, he’s nice: Visual attention during person perception
*HONORABLE MENTION at the 2012 poster session for psychology thesis students at York University.*
Amanda began graduate studies in social psychology at the University of Toronto in the fall of 2012.
Graduate Student Mentor: Amanda Williams
2009-2010
Ratika Srivastava
Thesis: The South Asian persuasion: Implicit and explicit race attitudes and perceptions of relative status
After two years working at NIH, Ratika started medical school in the fall of 2012.
Graduate Student Mentor: Amanda Williams
2008-2009
Elaine Tay
Thesis: A cross-cultural investigation of implicit racial attitudes and social status awareness: A social-cognitive-developmental perspective from Brueni Darussalam.
*WINNER of the 2009 W. B. Templeton Honours Thesis Award (for the top thesis in the Department of Psychology at York University) and a Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) Certificate of Academic Excellence*
Elaine is pursuing graduate studies in clinical psychology in Australia.
Graduate Student Mentor: Amanda Williams
Summer Thesis
Thesis: Implicit and Explicit Stereotypes: A Function of Race or the Valence of a Statement?
This summer thesis student entered law school after completing her psychology degree.
Graduate Student Mentor: Leah Reisz
2007-2008
Stephanie Durante
Thesis: The relationship between implicit and explicit racial attitudes across the lifespan.
Stephanie began graduate studies in Education (OISE) in the fall of 2008.
Graduate Student Mentor: Amanda Williams
Jennifer Lamanna
Thesis: The Malleability of Racial Attitudes: The Effect of Interracial Interactions and Exposure to Racism on the Implicit and Explicit Expression of Prejudice
Graduate Student Mentor: Leah Reisz
Sheridy Leslie
Thesis: Does Racial Inequality Really Exist? Examining the Effects of Racism on System-Justifying Beliefs
Graduate Student Mentor: Allison Bair
2006-2007
Anna loi
Thesis: Children's implicit and explicit stereotyping in mathematics: Examining stereotype stratification in early elementary school
Anna began graduate studies in psychology in the fall of 2007.
Graduate Student Mentor: Amanda Williams
2005-2006
Marsha Dunkley
Thesis: The effect of social norms and gender on body type preferences.
Marsha began medical school in the fall of 2006.
Graduate Student Mentor: Allison Bair
Doriann Shapiro
Thesis: The effect of a brief role modeling intervention on children's implicit and explicit attitudes.
Doriann began graduate studies in Education (OISE) in the fall of 2007.
Graduate Student Mentor: Amanda Williams
Jennifer Whittman
Thesis: The effect of stereotype stratificaiton in children's gender stereotypes and attitudes towards math.
Jennifer completed her B.Ed. in 2006-2007.
Graduate Student Mentor: Amanda Williams and Leah Reisz
2004-2005
Bryan Siekierko
Thesis: The contextual nature of personality: The effects of implicit priming on self-reported personality measures.
Bryan entered Schulich's MBA program in the fall of 2006.
Susan Staton
Thesis: Does race matter? The effects of social category priming on self-reported personality.
