Our Team - CIR-Lab | Collective Intelligence Research Lab(CIR-Lab)

CIR-Lab Team

The People Behind CIR-Lab

A multidisciplinary team of scholars, practitioners and mentors united by a shared commitment to culturally integrative research and youth wellbeing.

Dr. Stephen Asatsa

Founding Director, CIR-Lab

Leadership

Director’s Profile

A Scholar-Practitioner-Researcher in Psychology, Indigenous Knowledge, Cultural Evolution and Human Development. He bridges academic work, research, practice and community service. He anchors the Lab on a Mentorship approach.

Core Team

Dr. Elizabeth Gichimu

Lab Associate Director

Dr Elizabeth Wangari Gichimu is a faculty member in the School of Psychology, Department of Clinical Psychology at Daystar University, Nairobi Kenya. She holds a Doctorate (PsyD) in Clinical Psychology. Her research has primarily focused on mental health, cultural influences on psychological well-being, and trauma interventions. She participated as a postdoctoral researcher on a Templeton Foundation-funded study exploring Luhya mourning rituals and their impact on psychological resilience.

John Makunda

Lab Statistician

John Makunda is a statistician, researcher, and data analyst with a strong focus on psychological and longitudinal research in African contexts. He is currently a PhD student at Kenyatta University, where he continues to advance his expertise in quantitative research methods and Biostatistics. John is actively involved in the Africa Long Life Study (ALLS), a multi-country longitudinal research project across Kenya, Namibia, and South Africa.

CIR- Lab Global Mentors

Prof. Sheina Lew-Levy

Sheina is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Durham University, UK. She uses methods from anthropology and psychology to conduct research in hunter-gatherer societies to understand the cultural diversity in, and evolution of, social learning in childhood. Specifically, she uses quantitative and qualitative methods to study how and from whom children learn through meaningful participation in everyday activities.

Prof. Amber Gayle Thalmayer

Amber Gayle Thalmayer is Professor for Personality, Mental Health, and Culture in the Department of Psychology at the University of Zurich and a 2026 European Research Council Consolidator Grant recipient. She is the principal investigator of the Africa Long Life Study, a longitudinal study of personality and mental health development among emerging adults throughout Namibia, Kenya, South Africa, soon expanding to Nigeria and Ghana. Her work has been funded by a 5-year professorial fellowship, a 4-year project grant, and an AGORA science communication grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation. To share this research with broader audiences, she co-created an award-winning documentary film, “Namibia Up: Being 18 in Africa Today” and writes for Psychology Today at her blog “One World, Many Minds”. PR

Prof. Hanako Suzuki

Hanako (Hana) Suzuki, Ph.D., is a professor at the College of Comprehensive Psychology at Ritsumeikan University in Osaka, Japan. She has served as an Executive Board member of the Japanese Psychology Association (2019-2023) and a member of the Committee of Global Psychology in the American Psychology Association (2020-2022), she and is an executive committee member of the IUPsyS (2021-present). She is the recipient of the Distinguished Contribution Award from the International Section of the Society of Counseling Psychology, American Psychological Association.

Gary Audas Jr., Ed.D., M.Ed., M.P.A.

Gary Audas Jr. is an educator, researcher, and nonprofit leader whose work focuses on literacy, trauma-informed education, and resilience in adult learning spaces. He holds a Doctor of Education in Literacy, a Master of Education in Curriculum and Development, and a Master of Public Administration from Sam Houston State University. Dr. Audas serves as the Executive Director of Educational Outcomes, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing trauma-informed educational practices for marginalized learners worldwide. His academic career has included teaching appointments at Hampton University, Sam Houston State University, and the University of Houston–Clear Lake.

Prof Takahashi Kohshke

Dr. Kohske Takahashi is a distinguished Japanese experimental psychologist and cognitive scientist, currently serving as Professor in the College of Comprehensive Psychology at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan. His work has made significant contributions to the fields of human perception, cognitive science, and psychological illusions, advancing our understanding of how the human mind interprets and constructs reality.

Dr. Fadia Braktia

Dr. Fadia Braktia is the Strategic Partnerships Manager for TOEFL, South Region, bringing extensive expertise in international education and language assessment. She previously served as the Director of Writing Support and College Readiness and as the Fulbright Program Advisor at Sam Houston State University. Dr. Braktia brings a truly global perspective to her work, with international experience in Algeria, China, the United States, Costa Rica, and Russia. She earned an EdD in Literacy and was awarded a United States Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant grant.