Katherine B Elder

Adjunct Faculty

Industrial/Organizational Psychology

Dr. Katie Elder owns and operates a small business - Overlook Barn - and is also an independent consultant with her company People Part Consulting where she consults with small business owners in the creative industry to help them with their human capital needs.

Prior to stepping out on her own, Katie had over 17 years of experience in human capital consulting. A graduate of George Mason's IO Psychology program, Katie was a consultant at FMP Consulting– a Human Capital Consulting firm in Alexandria, VA. She had the pleasure of working with them for over 10 years on all things human capital, primarily with Federal government clients. She had the opportunity to build internship programs, selection processes, develop and implement performance management programs, conduct organizational assessments, and participate in many more projects. In this role she was able to apply her academic learnings into real-world consulting and learned the value of customer service, building trust with clients, and matching solutions to the context of the organization.

After her time at FMP Consulting, she joined the Talent Assessment team in the People Analytics organization at Capital One. Initially, she focused primarily on building out selection processes for the Technology organization. Eventually, she took on a more broad role and focused on building and implementing an internal interview management system, along with acquiring and implementing a program to assess coding skills.

Katie lives in Durham, NC with her husband and three children.

Selected Publications

Morgan, W.B., Elder, K.B., & King, E.B., (2013), The emergence and reduction of bias in letters of recommendation. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 43, 2297-2306.

King, E., Dunleavy, D., Dunleavy, E., Jaffer, S., Morgan, W., Elder, K.,& Graebner, R. (2011) Modern-Day Discrimination: Are science and the law aligned? Psychology, Public Policy, & Law, 17, 54-75.

Courses Taught

Instructor:

Foundations of Industrial Psychology, Graduate Course

Social Psychology, Undergraduate Course

Research Methods in Psychology, Undergraduate Course

Lab Instructor:

People in Organizations/Organizational Behavior; GMU School of Management

Advanced Statistical and Research Methods in Psychology I & II

Education

George Mason University, Fairfax, VA

Ph.D. Industrial/Organizational Psychology May 2012

M.A. Industrial/Organizational Psychology May 2006

Dissertation: Evaluating Letters of Reference: The Effect of Rater’s Implicit and Explicit Attitudes and Organizational Interventions

Advisor: Jose Cortina, Ph.D.

North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC

B.A., Psychology, Statistics (minor) December 2003

Summa Cum Laude