Lab Director

Dr. Daniel J. Griffin is an assistant professor at the University of South Florida where he founded the TACTICS Lab. He earned a Dual Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology and Computational Mathematics from Michigan State University. As a Ph.D. student he was awarded the prestigious National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG) for his work studying team-resilience and using mathematical models to build a framework for studying team performance in human-agent teams. Dr. Griffin is fascinated by studying how social connection, effective leadership, and an overall sense of group identity/community impacts a team shapes a team.

Doctoral Student

Steph Boettcher graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from the University of South Florida. Broadly speaking, Steph’s research interests lie at the intersection of teams and tech-enabled assessments. Recent interests include computational modeling methodology, and artificial intelligence within human-agent teams. Steph is also deeply committed to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility, and Belonging (DEIAB) efforts within all aspects of her research. With applied experience in the development and validation of adaptive simulation-based personnel assessment tools, Steph has contributed innovative solutions for talent sourcing, selection, and training across various sectors, including commercial, defense, and military.

Doctoral Student

Max Brunell graduated from Arizona State University with his Bachelor’s degree in Psychological Science and a minor in Statistics. He has begun working with his mentor Dr. Daniel Griffin, researching questions with the topics of team behavior, human-agent team’s, and trust within team systems. In his free time, Max enjoys playing disc golf, exploring nature, and playing video-games.

Doctoral Student

Caroline Deal graduated from the University of Tulsa with her bachelor’s in psychology and minors in Spanish and political science. In the I-O psychology Ph.D. program, she works primarily with Dr. Griffin, Dr. Gillespie, and Dr. Chao. She is studying physiological synchrony development in teams and its relationship to team performance as moderated by affective states for her thesis. She is also interested in parsing out the predictors of physiological synchrony development over time. Other projects include investigating the implementation of exoskeletons and its effects on the workplace, cross over of job stress to health outcomes in couples, and sexual harassment of women leaders. For more information, feel free to email her at carolinedeal@usf.edu.

Doctoral Student

Austin Katz, M.A., is a doctoral student in the Psychology program at USF. Austin is from New York and earned BAs in Psychology and Journalism from Lehigh University. His research interests focus on applied judgment and decision making, specifically modeling the effects of motivations and context during decision making. When not in the lab, he is likely playing video games, catching Pokémon, reading comic books or baking the perfect sourdough bread. A current list of Austin’s work can be found on his CV.

Doctoral Student

David Taullahu is a PhD student in the Industrial-Organizational Psychology program at the University of South Florida. He earned his BA in Psychology with a concentration in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from DePaul University in 2022, alongside minors in French and Organizational Communication. As an undergraduate student, David served as president of DePaul’s chapter of Psi Chi, and completed an honors thesis titled, “Pandemic Pressure: Race, Job Insecurity, and Stress during the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Upon graduating, he worked for two years as a laboratory manager, focusing on emotion and cognition across the adult lifespan, looking at the intersection of motivation, aging, and exercise. David’s primary research interests include teams, leadership, and emotions.

Doctoral Student

Savannah Flak (she/her) is a first year I-O doctoral student. For the past two years, Savannah worked as a Research Associate for Fors Marsh, a research consulting firm, where she supported recruitment research for the U.S. Army. Building on her social psychology expertise regarding body image and eating behaviors, Savannah’s current research interests include occupational health and team effectiveness. In her free time, Savannah enjoys tending to her many houseplants, singing, and spending time with her two cats.

Doctoral Student

Enzo Novi Migliano is a PhD student in industrial and organizational psychology at the University of South Florida. He is broadly interested in the future of work, technology acceptance, and teams. Enzo conducts his research using sophisticated tools and techniques such as computational modeling, simulations, and machine learning.