Steven Zhou

Adjunct Faculty

Leadership, psychometrics, education, academic-practitioner gap

I'm an Assistant Professor of Psychological Science at Claremont McKenna College, where I lead the STATS Lab (www.statslabatcmc.com), as well as an Adjunct Professor with George Mason University. My research sits at the intersection of leadership, personality, and vocational psychology, with methodological expertise in psychometrics, multivariate statistics, machine learning, computational modeling, and R & Tableau for data analysis and visualization. I also actively seek to bridge the academic-practitioner gap through science communication, collaborative research, open science, and consulting.

🔬 I’ve authored 20+ peer-reviewed publications and secured nearly $40,000 in external research funding, earning awards from AOM, APA, SIOP, and ILA. My current projects include new methods and approaches to leadership research, multidimensional forced-choice (MFC) assessments, LLM-based leadership evaluations, and longitudinal studies of career calling.

👨‍🏫 I teach courses such as organizational psychology and behavior, statistics, psychometrics and multivariate methods, and careers. My courses focus on hands-on, applied learning using real-world data, reproducible research workflows, and lively classroom discussions (and debates!).

🤝 I am a leadership and operations consultant, primarily for nonprofits. I serve on the Board of Directors for Project SHORT, a 501(c)3 dedicated to expanding graduate school access through mentorship. I previously oversaw a $2 million annual operating budget and successfully led an executive leadership succession plan and hire.

🎸 Outside of academia, I enjoy music production, hiking, and strategic (aka intense) board games. If you visit with me, you can see my closet full of obscure and overly complicated games!

🌐 I'd love to connect! Email me, visit our lab website, and/or subscribe to our monthly newsletter.

Selected Publications

Zhou, S., Lebrecht, A. D.*, Pithayarungsarit, P.*, & Monke, C.** (in press). The gatekeepers of academia: Investigating bias in journal publication across topics, author backgrounds, and institutions. Learned Publishing.

Lee, P., Son, M.*, Zhou, S., Joo, S., Jia, Z., & Cheng, V.* (2025). The journey of forced choice measurement over 80 years: Past, present, and future. Organizational Research Methods. doi.org/10.1177/10944281251350687

Zhou, S., Weiss, H. A., McCuskey, B., & Tay, L. (2025). College student well-being: Explaining academic and behavioral outcomes from a representative college student sample. Journal of Happiness Studies. doi.org/10.1007/s10902-025-00906-3

Zhou, S., & Srivastava, A.** (2024). Investigating gender and racial-ethnic biases in sentiment analysis of language. Cogent Psychology. doi.org/10.1080/23311908.2024.2396695

Zhou, S., Hiller, N. J., Zaccaro, S. J., Campbell, L. N. P.*, McCauley, R.*, Parris, T., & Klimoski, R. J. (2024). The corporate Chief of Staff: Strategic leadership influence from outside the spotlight. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies. doi.org/10.1177/15480518241267078

Zhou, S., Campbell, L. N. P.*, & Fyffe, S.* (2024). Quantifying the academic-practitioner gap: How do small business owners react to academic articles? [Focal article]. Industrial and Organizational Psychology. doi.org/10.1017/iop.2024.11

Zhou, S., Cheng, V.*, & Lee, P. (2024). What are you comparing it to? Investigating order effects in presentation of multidimensional forced choice personality items. Personality and Individual Differences. doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2024.112581

Zhou, S., Aitken, J.*, & Kuykendall, L. (2023). Callings can take different shapes: Scope, proximity, and duration as new complexifications of calling. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. doi.org/10.1111/joop.12459

Zhou, S., & Kodama Muscente, K.* (2022). Meta-analysis of volunteer motives using the Volunteer Functions Inventory (VFI) to explain volunteer satisfaction, commitment, and behavior. Nonprofit and Volunteer Sector Quarterly. doi.org/10.1177/08997640221129540

* graduate student co-authors; ** undergraduate student co-authors

Grants and Fellowships

2025 Jablin Dissertation Award, International Leadership Association and Jepson School of Leadership Studies

2025 Chapman Dissertation Award, Network of Leadership Scholars and Academy of Management

2023 Dissertation Research Award, American Psychological Association

2022 Free Inquiry Grant, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

2022 Graen Grant for Student Research on Leaders and Teams, Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology

2021 Kenneth E. Clark Student Research Award, International Leadership Association and the Center for Creative Leadership

2021 Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor, GMU Department of Psychology

Courses Taught

PSYC 300: Statistics in Psychology
PSYC 320: Psychological Tests and Measurements
PSYC 379: Applied Cross-Cultural Psychology
BA 366: Organizational Behavior
PSYC 601: Applied Data Analytics I

Education

B.A. Industrial & Organizational Psychology, summa cum laude | Pepperdine University
M.A. Religion | Pepperdine University
Ph.D. Industrial-Organizational Psychology | George Mason University

In the Media

Zhou, S. (2023, August 28). What’s in a calling? Healthy Work Podcast. https://www.audacy.com/podcast/healthy-work-eb0a8/episodes/whats-in-a-calling-55d09

Zhou, S. (2022, August 11). Three roadblocks in academia that limit science communication. Heterodox: The Blog. https://heterodoxacademy.org/blog/three-roadblocks-in-academia-that-limit-science-communication

Zhou, S. (2022, February 25). The academic bait-and-switch: Do professors make good administrators? The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2022/02/the-academic-bait-and-switch-do-professors-make-good-administrators

Zhou, S. (2021, November 16). Failure isn’t really failure: What academia can learn from start-up culture. Heterodox: The Blog. https://heterodoxacademy.org/blog/failure-isnt-really-failure-what-academia-can-learn-from-start-up-culture

Zhou, S. (2021, June 7). 3 warning signs to consider before using a personality test. Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/90643890/3-warnings-signs-to-consider-before-using-a-personality-test