MEET THE TEAM

Our team is comprised of scholar-practitioners who value connections between people. Our unique backgrounds, skills, and experience all contribute to our identity as a team.

Dr. Joey Collins, Psy. D

"Leaders are dealers of hope." - Napoleon Bonaparte

Dr. Collins is an Assistant Professor of Industrial and Organizational Psychology at Seattle Pacific University where he oversees a research program focused on executive coaching and leadership. His specialties include OD consulting, Executive Coaching, Gestalt and Change Management. Dr. Collins consulting begins in the C-suite working with leaders, their teams and then to the entire organization. His clients include General Motors, Ford, Alaska Dept. of Transportation, Coinstar-Redbox, UW Medical Center, and Blue Origin. Dr. Collins training includes a Post-Doctoral Fellowship with the Veterans Health Affairs National Center for Organization Development. In his spare time, Joey competes nationally in tennis and triathlon.

Sarah Cannon, Ph.D. Candidate

"Of course I want to be successful but I don’t crave success for me. I need to be successful to gain enough milk and honey to help those around me succeed" -Rupi Kaur

Born and raised in Wasilla, Alaska, Sara found her second home with SPU in 2011. Passionate about music and helping people, she pursued education and training in the field of music therapy. After completing an internship with MusicWorx Inc. in San Diego, CA, she obtained her Music Therapist, Board Certified (MT-BC) credential. For several years, she worked as a counselor and music therapist with a variety of populations in the Seattle area. An interest in utilizing Motivational Interviewing (MI) and music for wellness in the workplace is what drove Sara to join the I-O Psychology program at SPU in 2016. With Collins' RVT, Sara developed the initial CoachMotivation training used for research and consulting through Collins Alliance. In addition to MI informed coaching, Sara's research interests include burnout and job-seeking & interviewing behaviors. Outside of pursuing her doctoral degree, Sara works as a Technical Recruiter with Amazon where she supports the hiring process through partnering with brilliant individuals in the technology industry. In her free time, Sara enjoys singing with the Seattle Choral Company.

Hunter Bronkema, Ph.D. Candidate

“You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader.”– Henry Ford

Hunter is in his second year of the Industrial-Organizational Psychology doctorate program at Seattle Pacific University. Before joining the program, Hunter received his Bachelor's in Psychology from Northern Michigan University. Currently, he works as an Assistant Project Manager at Stang Decision Systems, based out of Marquette, Michigan. Hunter's passion for research lies primarily in Selection, but he also has a strong interest in Coaching. In his spare time, he enjoys sailing and hiking.

Hannah Wagner, Ph.D. Candidate

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Bio

Mackenzie Harris, Ph.D. Candidate

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Bio

Diana Wolfe, Ph.D. Candidate

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Bio

Elizabeth McCarthy, Ph.D. Candidate

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Bio

Kristine Reeves, Ph.D. Candidate

"Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved." - Leo F. Buscaglia

Kristine is the principal consultant and CEO of a small strategic planning and project management firm, a doctoral student in Industrial-Organizational Psychology, and a third-term WA State Representative. First elected in 2017, Kristine was the first African American woman elected to the Washington State House in 18 years and the only woman in the legislature with children under 5. Kristine went on to serve as the WA Senior Advisor for the Biden-Harris campaign and launch a program focused on providing individual leadership and governance supports, organizational tools, and DEI change management resources to combat systemic oppression and exclusion in public policy development and political institutions as places of work.

Alyssa Lopez, Ph.D. Candidate

“One of the criticisms I’ve faced over the years is that I’m not aggressive enough ... or maybe somehow, because I’m empathetic, it means I’m weak. I totally rebel against that. I refuse to believe that you cannot be both compassionate and strong.” - Jacinda Ardern

Alyssa is a second-year doctoral student in the Industrial-Organizational Psychology program at Seattle Pacific University. Alyssa was born and raised in sunny Los Angeles, California. She attended the University of California, Los Angeles where she majored in psychology and minored in gender studies. She is passionate about the unique experience of women in the workplace and the ways in which coaching can provide a catalyst for both personal and professional evolution. In her free time, Alyssa enjoys staying active, traveling, reading, and listening to podcasts.

Aaron Kakiel, Ph.D. Candidate

"Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.” - Sam Rayburn

Aaron is a career Navy officer, husband, and father of three young kids working on his Ph.D. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology to eventually teach leadership at the United States Naval Academy. He has a BS in Systems Engineering from the Naval Academy and an Executive MBA from the Naval Postgraduate School. He has served around the world with the Navy as a submariner and public affairs officer before coming to Seattle Pacific University. His research interests include coaching, mentorship, and humility.

Erica Largent, Graduate Assistant

“If we want people to fully show up, to bring their whole selves including their unarmored, whole hearts... we have to be vigilant about creating a culture in which people feel safe, seen, heard, and respected.” - Brené Brown

Erica is currently an MA student in Industrial-Organizational Psychology at Seattle Pacific University. In addition to working with the Collins RVT, she also works for HumanPoint, a small executive consulting company. She holds a BA in Communication with minors in Spanish and International Studies from the University of Washington in Seattle, where she moved after having grown up in Japan, the Dominican Republic, Taiwan, and China. Erica loves to travel, play tennis, ski, hike, read, spend time with her family, and learn as much as she can about how to help people and organizations grow in efficiency.

ALUMNI

Our past team members have been integral players in our research and are now out in the world working on other exciting projects.

Nathan Iverson, Ph.D.

“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.” - John Wesley

Nathan holds his PhD in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Seattle Pacific University with a dissertation title "Career Development Practices in a Global Economy". He is the founding program director of Industrial-Organizational Psychology at California Baptist University where he built a nationally-ranked graduate program which launched in 2017. He is the founder and CEO of Momentum Coaching & Consulting. His consulting, teaching, and scholarship has brought him around the world with ongoing partnerships across sectors in the US, UK, Canada, Mexico, and India.

Meghan Quint, Ph.D.

“You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through.” - Rosalynn Carter

Meghan is currently the Director of Strategy Management at Premera Blue Cross in Mountlake Terrace where she implements Enterprise Performance Management and Corporate Planning disciplines. In addition, Meghan also teaches two courses at University of Washington Bothell and is an adjunct faculty member at Oregon Health and Sciences University in Portland where she teaches Managerial Decision Making to MBA students. Outside of her career and teaching, Meghan enjoys volunteering on the community advisory board for Snohomish County Tomorrow. Her favorite memory of being with Collins RVT was presenting the team’s research as a poster at the Harvard Medical McLean Coaching in Leadership & Healthcare Conference with Dr. Collins. Her dissertation is titled The Role of Leader Engagement in Predicting Organizational Profitability through Subordinate Engagement and Service Climate and Quality.

Mike Nelson, Ph.D.

“Leading can be as simple as having the right tool for the right job - RTRJ.” - Jeff Nelson

Dr. Mike Nelson is an accomplished business leader with international experience in Talent & Organizational Development and Business Operations. His unique solutions have been successfully implemented in companies spread across education, food, healthcare, legal, retail, and technology industries. As an organizational psychologist, he is passionate about balancing business performance and the employee experience. Additionally, Mike prides himself as a strong advocate for the LGBTQ+ community both inside and outside of the workplace. In 2022, Mike graduated from the program after successfully defending his dissertation, CoachMotivation: Leveraging motivational interviewing methodology to increase emotion regulation ability in the workplace.

Mark North, Ph.D.

"A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves." - Lao Tzu (translated)

Mark currently conducts private consulting with organizations out of Vineyard, Utah. His work includes providing program, data analytics, and psychometrics support to various organizations, including an executive coaching firm and a personality/character development mobile app startup. Mark also teaches part-time for online courses in psychology and business. Find out more about Mark’s consulting at: www.pathwayspaver.com. Mark greatly enjoyed being a part of Collins RVT, especially in regard to the push for excellence, the unique perspectives that team members brought (in both theory and practice), and the strong work ethic. Working together on Collins RVT always brought fun, innovation, and hard work. The title of Mark’s dissertation is: Student Ownership of Learning and Retention: A Hierarchical Investigation of the Educational Working Alliance.

Tony Pizelo, Ph.D., SHRM-SCP

“The ability to move people now depends on power’s inverse: understanding another person’s perspective, getting inside his head, and seeing the world through his eyes.”

--Daniel H. Pink, To Sell is Human

Tony has been an executive in the financial industry for over 25 years. He is currently Associate Professor in the College of Business at Northwest University. Tony has spent many years teaching various college-level courses, including both undergraduate and graduate classes in finance, economics, leadership, strategy, sales, and I-O psychology. Tony is a certified director through UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, and a former Accredited Investment Fiduciary Analyst (AIFA) through the University of Pittsburg. When not at work or school, Tony enjoys spending time with his family including his wife Bonnie and their six children. Tony is an active member of New Covenant Fellowship.

Alifiya Khericha, M.Ed., Ph.D.

“I think that leadership more than anything is about setting a course and describing a vision for people.”

-Barack Obama

Before joining the Industrial-Organizational guild, Alifiya received her Bachelor's from Gonzaga University. She then joined Teach for America, Las Vegas Valley and received her Master’s in Education from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Afterward, she moved to Seattle where she began working with children from birth to 3-years with developmental delays. During this time, she started her company's equity and inclusion team which propelled her decision to go back to school. She is primarily interested in diversity, equity, and inclusion and the potential role I-O can play in education.

Audrey Kinase Kolb, Ph.D.

“Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence, and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.” - Sheryl Sandberg

Prior to pursuing her doctorate degree, Audrey received her B.A. in Psychology from Pitzer College. Audrey currently works at Seattle Genetics as an HR Career Development Consultant where she owns the career pathing project and employee engagement survey. She also works extensively with the OD&T, Talent Acquisitions, and HRBP teams on job evaluation, competency modeling, interview protocols, and on-boarding process projects. She hopes her next roles will be equally diverse, more data-driven, and utilize her statistics proficiency gained from her Teaching Assistantships for Program Evaluation, Statistics, and Research Methods classes at Pitzer and SPU. Audrey's research interests include coach/coachee characteristics' influence on coaching success and the validity and reliability of coaching models for executive and managerial coaching. In her spare time, Audrey enjoys attending Comic Con events, playing D&D, and utilizing Harry Potter references when teaching statistics. Further information can be found at http://kinasekolb.com and http://kinasekolb.com/rad-coaching.html

Megan Schuller, Ph.D.

"To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart." - Eleanor Roosevelt

Megan currently leads the Employee Listening Strategy at Lumen Technologies. Her work centers on improving employee engagement while also building the Employee Experience (EX) – Customer Experience (CX) connection.

Megan’s focus while on the Collins RVT was coaching in the workplace, a topic of research she has integrated into past and present roles. A fond memory was presenting with Dr. Collins and Amanda Holland at the SIOP 2022 Conference, demonstrating the use of facial recognition software in a coaching setting.

Her dissertation is titled: CoachMotivation: Developing Transformational Leadership by Increasing Effective Communication Skills in the Workplace

Justin Cospito, Ph.D.

"The bottom line in leadership isn't how far we advance ourselves but how far we advance others" - John Maxwell

Justin completed his bachelor's degree in Psychology at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan while minoring in Business and Philosophy. He has continued his education in the Industrial-Organizational Psychology doctoral program at Seattle Pacific University. His academic interests include managerial coaching, compassion within organizations, and applied research methods. In his personal time, Justin enjoys rock climbing and spontaneous adventures with his friends.