ABOUT US
Our lab is made up of a diverse collection of people who all have a love of psychological research. We try to foster a culture of inclusion where everyone feels a sense of purpose and belonging and where people feel that they can thrive. We are strongly committed to equity, diversity and inclusion (as much of our research illustrates) and welcome you to peruse this website to find out more about what we do!

Director and Principal Investigator
Professor S. S. Obhi, Ph.D.
Dr. Obhi completed his PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London (UCL) where he worked on questions relating to sensorimotor control and volition. Following his PhD, Dr. Obhi was a Postdoctoral Fellow at what is now the Brain and Mind Institute at Western University, in London Ontario. Dr. Obhi currently runs the Social Brain, Body and Action Lab and the Social Brain @ Work lab at McMaster University.
Dr. Obhi contributes to the scientific community by serving as a Co-Editor at Experimental Brain Research and a review editor at Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. He was previously an associate editor at Cognitive Neuroscience, Acta Psychologica and the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. Dr. Obhi has more than a decade of experience with academia-industry collaborations and knowledge mobilization activities.
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Over time, Dr. Obhi's core research interests have evolved to focus on understanding the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying human social cognition and behaviour. The lab is especially interested in social cognition and behaviour in the context of social diversity, including consideration of how power and status differences exert their effects on brain and behaviour.
Lab Members


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​​​​​​Dr. Meghan George: Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
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Meghan joined the Social Brain, Body and Action Lab in early 2023. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D in Social Psychology from York University in Toronto where she studied face perception, apologies, and implicit attitudes across development. In 2020, she received a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship to work with Dr. Sylvia Perry at Northwestern University. Her work with Dr. Perry examines potential interventions aimed at improving intergroup interactions among adults and promoting anti-racism in children.
Here at McMaster, Meghan continues to research how biases affect our interactions with people from different social categories (e.g., race, gender, status). She is currently investigating how we mimic the behaviour of different interaction partners. She is also using electroencephalography (EEG) to study how the brain processes our own implicit biases.
If you'd like more information about Dr. George and her ongoing work, you can check out her website here.
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Dr. Carl Michael Galang​​​​​​: Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
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I am currently a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Humboldt University of Berlin under the supervision of Prof. Marcel Brass. I completed my undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto with a double major in Cognitive Science and Philosophy. My PhD is in Psychology (with my training in the subfield of Social Cognitive Neuroscience) and was completed at McMaster University under the supervision of Prof. Sukhvinder Obhi. I have a wide variety of research interests and have published scientific works on topics spanning the sense of agency, empathy, social power, dehumanization, and automatic imitation.
My current work is funded by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowship. My project's overall aim is to investigate if and how being in a group influences joint agency. In addition, I currently have research interests in rule breaking and the sense of agency, anticipated imitation in multi-agent contexts, and on basic work on volition.
To see my work, please visit: https://galangca.github.io/
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Deewa Anwarzi: PhD Student (Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour)
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Deewa is a PhD student studying bodily self-consciousness and action. She is interested in understanding the sensorimotor and cognitive factors that shape people’s understanding of themselves, their bodies, and their actions.
Her current work explores the impact of trauma, dissociation, and narcissism on self-awareness during intentional actions.
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Sabine Bou Saba: PhD Student
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Sabine (she/her) is a PhD student at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Marcel Brass and Prof. Dr. Obhi from McMaster University in Canada. She earned her Bachelor's degree in Psychology with minors in Gender Studies and Creative Writing at the American University of Beirut. She then completed her Master’s in Cognitive Neuroscience at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain. Sabine's current research project focuses on gender and agency. She aims to study how gender influences the ways in which we perceive agency and attribute responsibility in different social contexts.
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Jaelon Leid-Bailey: PhD Student (Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour)
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Jaelon is currently working on his MSc and is studying intergroup empathy. He is particularly interested in peoples' motivation to empathize with others across social group boundaries.
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Salina Edwards: MSc Student (Neuroscience)
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Salina (she/her) is an MSc student interested in Sense of Agency and Human-AI interaction dynamics. After completing her B.A. in Psychology and English Literature at the University of British Columbia, Salina drove across the country to join the Obhi lab at McMaster University. Her research is currently being funded by NSERC.
Learn more about Salina and her latest publications here.
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Current Undergraduate Students
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Avery Brennan
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Hani Habib
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Karina Di Pietro
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Michael Ladouceur
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Mohammed Abbas
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Caleigh Kloppenburg
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Randa Al Hubaishi
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Hemanshi Bhandari
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Teodora Nedic
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Zach Geddes
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Ellen Troyer-O'Connor
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Joshika Jaswal
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Navya Vattikundala
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Carol Zhang
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Juliana Busby
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Serena Niles-Kim
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Zaina Gohar
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Rozhin Garousi
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Pari Patel
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Maanya Sheth
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Urbana Haidar
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Zainab Choksi
Selected alumni
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Dr. Alejandro Perez
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Dr. Michael Vesker
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Charlotte De Biasi (Fall, 2021)
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Zoya Pal (21/22)
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Amitoze Deol (21/22)
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Caroline Milligan (21/22)
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Zach Chiodi (21/22)
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Iqra Abid (Fall, 2021)
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Dr. Devin Johnson
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Dr. Carl Michael Galang
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Dr. Sumeet Farwaha
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Rubina Malik
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Maria Ershova (former MSc student)
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Hassan Siddiqui (former QQ student)
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Maria Nicula (former QQ student)
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Eric Rushton (former thesis student)
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Jesse Krusky (former thesis student)
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Katherine Naish, PhD
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Ciro Civile, PhD
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Eamon Colvin, BSc
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Michael Ku, BSc
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Hussein Oliek, BSc
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Nadia Nadeem
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Sarah Blyth, MSc
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Brittany Barnes, MSc
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Ann Hascalovitz, BSc
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Megan Grocholsky
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Shawna Davies
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Jeremy Hogeveen, PhD
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May El Bouri
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Katherine Zagrodney
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Sahil Maria
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Roham Farzami, MSc
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Kristina Swiderski
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Preston Hall, MSc
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Angie Yong
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Hanna McCabe-Bennett
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Carolyn Wilson, PhD
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Lars Strother, PhD
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Shannon Matkovitch, MSc
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Cheryl Lavell, MSc
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Amir Shabani, PhD
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Rebecca Decloe, BSc - MSc Candidate
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Amanda Demmer
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Sonja Brubacher, PhD
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Tiffany O'Connor
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Cigar Kalfouglu, PhD
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Carly Romano
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Suzanne McKay