The School is pleased to celebrate the promotion of outstanding faculty members, Teresa Cardador and Bo Zhang. Teresa has been promoted to the rank of Full Professor, and Bo to Associate Professor. Our success is the direct result of the scholarship and leadership of our faculty, and we’re proud to highlight their accomplishments.
Professor Cardador
Why LER?
LER has been my academic home since the start of my career. There are so many things I truly love and appreciate about it. First, the faculty and staff make this a great work environment. The School is highly collegial and working in a multi-disciplinary unit offers exciting opportunities for collaboration and continuous learning. Second, I enjoy teaching in the MHRIR program and working with our excellent students to further their career development. Finally, mentoring and working alongside our talented, engaged, and passionate PhD students is an opportunity I highly value. Overall, LER is a wonderful place to be and I’m grateful to work with such inspiring colleagues and students!
My Research
My research centers on how individuals experience their work and understand themselves in the work that they do. In examining these issues, my research focuses on three broad, and frequently intersecting, topics: the experience of women in gendered occupations, meaningful/purposeful work, and identity at work. My recent work reveals the existence of a “status leveling burden” for women in male-dominated occupations working in cross occupational collaboration with women in female-dominated occupation. I show how and why status-leveling comes at the cost of increased physical and emotional labor, potentially impacting women surgeons’ productivity and career progression. In additional recent work, I map the challenges, strengths, and inventions experienced by women in male-dominated occupations. Taken together, my research is driven by the motivation to provide theoretical and practical insights into making labor and employment a more positive experience for individuals and society.
What The Dean Says
Teresa Cardador’s scholarship is distinguished by a clear and impactful focus on women in gendered occupations, meaningful and purposeful work, and work identity. Beyond her publishing record, she has secured two NSF grants as Co-PI on gendered career paths in engineering — a testament to her growing influence and recognition in the field. Much of her work employs time-sensitive, methodologically rigorous qualitative approaches, highlighting the depth and sophistication of her contributions. Equally noteworthy is her commitment to teaching: her passion and dedication significantly enrich students’ learning experiences and demonstrate how deeply she integrates teaching into her professional identity. Her impact also extends well beyond scholarship and instruction. She has led strategic initiatives, enhanced academic programs, strengthened alumni engagement, and championed diversity, equity, and inclusion. Moreover, her leadership in the field — including prominent roles in professional organizations — further illustrates the breadth and significance of her contributions. Collectively, these achievements reflect a scholar deeply invested in the success of LER and the university, whose influence is felt across research, teaching, service, and leadership.
Professor Zhang
Why LER?
There are so many things I love about LER. Academically, it is incredibly interdisciplinary: we have scholars from psychology, economics, labor studies, management, sociology, and history. Learning to approach employment topics from such diverse perspectives is deeply stimulating. Teaching-wise, I love sharing knowledge and tools that students can immediately apply in their jobs. One of the most rewarding moments is hearing that something from my class helped them solve a real work problem. Interpersonally, I appreciate how connected we are: we try new restaurants together, have faculty Olympics, host dinners, and celebrate each other’s achievements. And our staff are simply amazing: supportive, resourceful, and always reliable. Overall, I feel very grateful to be part of the LER community.
My Research
I am ultimately interested in helping individuals find the most fitting positions and organizations find the most fitting candidates. To achieve this overall goal, I study personnel selection from both substantive and methodological perspectives. Substantively, I focus on how to make the best use of individual differences, such as personality and vocational interests, to improve the effectiveness of selection decisions. Methodologically, I aim to refine our measurement tools to enhance the quality of the information they provide, and to develop new statistical models that more accurately extract and quantify that information. Together, these lines of work contribute to improving how we understand, measure, and leverage individual differences to make selection more effective and fairer.
What The Dean Says
Bo Zhang is on a clear trajectory to become one of the foremost scholars in his field within the next five years. His research is already making significant contributions — advancing the accuracy and reliability of personality measurement in hiring and admissions, uncovering the predictive power of hierarchical constructs, and understanding how personality shapes health and well-being both at the within- and between-person levels. What distinguishes Bo’s work is not only its methodological sophistication but also its strong practical relevance. His scholarship is widely recognized, reflected in a strong publication record in premier outlets, a growing citation impact, multiple research awards, and the broad adoption of his co-authored R packages. Equally impressive is his dedication to teaching and mentorship. Bo plays a vital role in advancing the academic missions of both LER and the Department of Psychology by teaching core undergraduate and graduate courses, advising and mentoring graduate students, and serving on numerous student committees. His achievements as both a scholar and educator highlight the significance of his contributions and signal the impact he is poised to continue making – both in his field and within the university – for years to come.