About Me

I am a cognitive psychologist interested in the spread of misleading information within organizational, political, and everyday contexts. My research focuses primarily on investigating the ways in which bullshit (and bullshitters), conspiracy theories, and political propaganda influence people’s beliefs, attitudes, and decisions. My work not only looks at how people think about and evaluate external information, but also at how we think about and evaluate our own internal thought processes (known as “metacognition”), including our ability to recognize and correct the reasoning errors and other cognitive mishaps that we all experience from time to time.

My goal is to create research that will help people and policymakers become better critical thinkers who can more quickly “detect and reject” misleading information before it can negatively impact their lives and the lives of others.

I’m currently a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University working with Dr. Peter Loewen. I am also a member of the Media Ecosystem Observatory (MEO), where I work as survey lead for a large-scale study tracking how online news, misinformation, and interference from foreign actors influence the political attitudes and behaviors of Canadian citizens, as well as how these phenomena impact the overall health of Canadian democracy. I’ve held previous postdoctoral positions at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto, the Department of Political Science at University of Miami working with Dr. Joe Uscinski, and at the Education in Persistence and Innovation Center (EPIC) at Teachers College, Columbia University.

I received my PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, ON, Canada working under the supervision of Dr. Jonathan Fugelsang and Dr. Evan F. Risko. I received a Master of Science degree in Research/Experimental Psychology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where I studied with Dr. Chris Cunningham. I also have a Bachelor degrees in both Psychology and Communication (Public Relations/Strategic Communication) from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. I also have extensive graduate training in Industrial-Organizational Psychology (supervised by Dr. Stephen Vodanovich) at the University of West Florida, but a serious car accident prevented me from graduating and set my life on its current path.

My work has been covered by a number of popular international media outlets including Forbes, The Guardian, CBC News, Global News, Bloomberg TV News, Vice, Inc.com, and Psychology Today, which you can read more about by clicking here. If you’d like to find out more about my current projects and scientific interests, use the Research tab on the menu above or click here.