Faculty Profile
Dr. John Sakaluk
Research Areas
Profile
I received my bachelor’s degree in Psychology (with a minor in Family and Child Studies), conducting my honours work under the supervision of Dr. Robin Milhausen. I then went to the University of Kansas, starting initially in Clinical Psychology, but ultimately completing my Ph.D. in Social Psychology (with a minor in Quantitative Psychology) working under the supervision of Dr. Monica Biernat. I then moved back to Canada to take SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship to work with Dr. Emily Impett. After a year, I then accepted a tenure-track position at the University of Victoria, and during my four years there, taught a number of undergraduate courses on human sexuality, and graduate courses on research methods and statistical modeling techniques. In the spring of 2020, I accepted an offer to return home to Ontario, to work in Western’s Department of Psychology.
As a core member of the Social, Personality, and Developmental Psychology area, I am interested in the development and application of psychometric measurement modeling techniques; I am particularly interested in the creation and evaluation of analytic tools to make forms of measurement modeling easier to use, and the use of psychometric techniques to understand group-based meanings of psychological concepts.
I am on sabbatical and will be much less responsive to email during the 2025-2026 academic year.
I will be considering graduate applicants during this cycle (i.e., to start in Fall 2026); those interested to work under my supervision should apply through our portal by the designated deadline (in the interest of fairness to all applicants, I do not meet or correspond much, in advance, before our formal applicant review process begins).
I am extremely interested in any applicants who are interested in
1) basic methodological work (e.g., model conceptualization, Monte Carlo simulations) focusing on dyadic structural equation modeling, and/or
2) contributing to the development of R-based open-source tools (e.g., packages, Shiny apps) and open-access resources (e.g., books, dashboards) for these quantitative methods.
Interested applicants can read more about our work in this area here and here.
I am eager and able to train students in R programming, dyadic data analysis, and structural equation modeling; your interest and motivation is all that is required!
