[ Industrial/Organizational Psychology ]

Director and Faculty

Program Director
Thomas Sawyer, Ph.D.
Thomas Sawyer started at Elmhurst College in 1998 after receiving his Ph.D. in industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology from the University of Akron. He is currently an assistant professor and program coordinator of the graduate program in I/O psychology. He has had extensive experience in consulting. He has worked on a wide variety of selection projects including the development and validation of selection batteries for safety forces and industrial jobs. These projects included conducting job analyses, writing job descriptions, developing selection tests, and performing statistical analyses. Additionally, he has prepared technical reports for employment related court cases. As a researcher, he has investigated interesting and relevant questions in I/O psychology. He has explored personality and attitudinal constructs associated with negative feedback avoidance in performance appraisal situations. Most recently, he conducted a study on stereotype threat to explore subgroup differences in testing.   

Internship and Thesis Coordinator
Jane A. Jegerski, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology
Jane Jegerski came to the Elmhurst faculty in 1989 after coordinating the I/O master’s program at Roosevelt University. She has an M.A. in vocational counseling and an M.A. and Ph.D.  in social/organizational psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has taught undergraduate and/or graduate psychology, statistics, and research methods at Moraine Valley Community College, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Roosevelt University. With several government and NGOs, she has conducted workshops on stress management, teamwork, and leadership.

Faculty
Lawrence B. Carroll, Psy.D., M.B.A.
Director of the Center for Professional Excellence
Larry Carroll’s background is in the areas of organization development and clinical psychology. His interests lie in teaching, conducting research, and consulting in the areas of organization development, group process, career/life planning, facilitation, and team building. He has worked with a number of organizations and individuals with strategic planning approaches to organizational, professional, and personal development.

Michael Feldman, Ph.D.
Michael Feldman is a nationally known trainer and consultant. As president of MSF and Associates, he conducted over 600 training sessions in the area of training trainers and personnel development for major private and public corporations, government agencies, universities, and school districts throughout the country. His book Making Training Work has been favorably reviewed and is used by numerous organizations for training trainers. In addition to holding managerial positions in both the public and private sectors, Dr. Feldman served as chairperson of the department of education and director of the Center of Special Programs at Elmhurst College. He presently serves the College in the capacity of professor of education and the director of the Freshman Advising Program.

Michael Feldman has earned national and local awards in the fields of adult and continuing education, training and development, and teacher education. He was selected as a U.S. Office of Education Fellow in 1966 and was awarded the ACT-NUEA national innovative award in continuing education in 1979 for instructional programs. He has been named to both Who's Who in American Education and Who's Who in Training -U.S. Industry. His writing and research has primarily been in the areas of training and development and secondary education.

Barbara Trautlein, Ph.D.
Barbara Trautlein is an independent change management, organizational development, and human resources consultant.  The main focus of her work is helping companies better align their human resources with their business goals and customer requirements.  Toward this end she applies organizational psychology principles and methods to aid clients in meeting their business, team, and individual challenges.  Key practice areas include managing change processes in companies undergoing major transitions, designing human resource systems, developing and implementing customized training programs as well as employee learning systems, facilitating team building interventions, conducting research evaluations and needs assessments, and coaching clients.  She holds a doctoral degree from the University of Michigan’s Organizational Psychology Program. 

Patrick K. Ackles, Ph.D.
Patrick Ackles teaches general psychology, mind, brain and behavior, cognitive processes, theories of learning, statistics, research methods, motivation, and early childhood.  His research is concerned with brain processes underlying cognition, development of the brain and cognition in human infants and children, concept formation, and executive functions in developmentally disabled individuals.

Karen N. Caruso, Ph.D.
Managing Director, Consulting Services, viaPeople
Karen Caruso is an experienced consulting leader.  In her role as managing director of consulting services she provides leadership to viaPeople’s team of industrial organizational psychologists and manages the development of innovative products that meet emerging customer needs.  She has focused her career on partnering with her clients to design and implement innovative performance management, career development, and succession planning systems.  Prior to joining viaPeople, she was a consulting manager at Performaworks and a management consultant at Rogala & Orr, Inc.  She also worked as an internal organizational development consultant at Advocate Healthcare, a large regional healthcare provider.  She has served as the president of the Chicago Industrial Organizational Psychologists and has spoken at seminars and national conferences on the implementation of best practice performance management strategies.  She received her B.S. from Elmhurst College, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from DePaul University.

Sherman Serna
Sherman Serna earned his M.S. in psychology at Northwestern University, and he is currently completing degree requirements for a Ph.D. in social/organizational psychology at Northern Illinois University. Additionally, he has worked as a training consultant for IBM Corporation and ADS. His research interests include social identity complexity and work-family conflict, the effects of perceived dissimilarity on team performance, stereotypes, and resistance to persuasion. Sherman Serna has also served as an ad hoc editorial consultant for the Journal of Business & Psychology, British Journal of Social Psychology, the Journal of Management Studies, and Personnel Psychology.

Carole Veronesi

Anthony Colantoni
Anthony Colantoni is a principal in The SGC Consulting Group, a Chicago-based organization development consulting firm that specializes in helping businesses and organizations through the growth and change process. Tony concentrates his efforts in the areas of strategic planning, team development, leadership development, and organizational change. In addition, he coaches executives and managers to achieve higher levels of performance. Tony has experience in many settings, such as manufacturing, technology, transportation, pharmaceuticals, consumer products, food, health care, higher education, human services, and church ministries. His client list includes Mercury Marine, Kraft, Motorola, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Abbott Diagnostics, CTA, Unilever, UOP, The Leukemia-Lymphoma Society, Loyola University Chicago, and Pepper Construction.

Tony received his bachelor’s degree from Villanova University, his J.D. from the John Marshall Law Center, and his M.S. in organizational development from Loyola University Chicago. He has engaged in additional professional development through the Center for Creative Leadership, the Organization Development Network, the American Society for Training and Development, the American Psychological Association, and the Association for Psychological Type. He is adjunct faculty at Elmhurst and elsewhere, teaching leadership, group dynamics, team development, and organizational theory and development to graduate and undergraduate students. He is also a consultant to Elmhurst’s Center for Professional Excellence, where he supports mentoring and career education.