Shalene Allen, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
423 Bluemont Hall
Industrial/Organizational
Workplace Support for Vulnerable Employees, Occupational Health and Well-Being Initiatives, Qualitative and Quantitative Methods
Background and Research Interests
Dr. Allen has spent over a decade working in various research labs and on prolifically funded projects. She received her BS, MS, and PhD from Portland State University. Her major focus is Industrial Organizational Psychology, with minors in Occupational Health Psychology and Quantitative Methodology. She recently joined the Department of Psychological Sciences at Kansas State University in 2024.
Dr. Allen’s research interests focus primarily on understanding the dispersion of workplace support facets across coworker, supervisor, and organizational levels and how such support transcends employee health and well-being, including domain spanning employee emotions and coping. Moreover, Dr. Allen is focused on applying such support through designing, delivering, implementing, and evaluating support training interventions. Additionally, she is interested in investigating well-being disparities across vulnerable worker populations utilizing rigorous qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Currently, she is a principal investigator on a project examining intimate partner violence (IPV) and workplace support to empower and restructure the organizational environment to aid survivors of abuse.
Ongoing and Upcoming Future Projects
Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and Workplace Supports: Toward an Organizational Empowerment Approach
Protecting and Promoting Service Member Health, Well-Being and Safety
Supporting Emergency Medical Service Employee Health, Well-Being and Safety
Student Involvement
Dr. Allen actively recruits motivated industrial organizational psychology graduate students to join her lab. Currently, she mentors several undergraduate research assistants who attend weekly laboratory meetings to develop their research skills and ideas and gain insight into workplace support research. Students interested in joining her lab can learn about data management, how to analyze data, publishing scientific papers, and grant funding proposal development. Dr. Allen values a scientist-practitioner philosophy where students are well-equipped to conduct independent research and application in the real world. Please feel free to reach out to her at shaleneallen@ksu.edu.
Selected Publications
Hammer, L. B., Dimoff, J., Mohr, C. D., & Allen, S. J. (2024). A Framework for Protecting and
Promoting Employee Mental Health through Supervisor Supportive Behaviors. Occupational Health Science special issue “Chronic Health Conditions in the Workplace: Implications of Work Organization, Work Design, and Organizational Practices”, 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41542-023-00171-x
Brossoit, R. M., Hammer, L. B., Bodner, T. E., Mohr, C. D., Allen, S. J., Crain, T. L.,
Brockwood, K. J., & Adler, A. B. (2024). Transfer of a leadership training intervention prior to COVID-19 on leadership support during the pandemic. Journal of Managerial Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1106/JMP-10-2023-0582
Mohr, C., Hammer, L., Dimoff, J., Allen, S., Lee, J., Arpin, S., McCabe, S., Brockwood, K., Bodner, T., Mahoney, L., Dretsch, M., & Britt, T. (2024). Supportive-leadership training to improve social connection: A cluster-randomized trial demonstrating efficacy in a high-risk occupational context. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000384
Hammer, L. B., Brockwood, K., Dimoff, J., Allen, S., Mohr, C., Dretsch, M., Lee, J., & Britt, T. (2024). Leadership training effects on service member problematic anger and well-being. Military Medicine, 189, S3:501-509. https://doi.org/10.1093/milmed/usae171
Hammer, L. B., Allen, S. J., Leslie, J. J. (2023). Occupational Stress and Well-Being: Workplace Interventions Involving Managers/Supervisors. In L. Lapierre & C. Cooper (Eds.). Cambridge Companion to Organisational Stress and Well-Being (ch.12). Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
Hammer, L. B., Allen, S. J., & Dimoff, J. K. (2022). The Missing Link: The Role of the Workplace in Mental Health. Workplace Health & Safety. https://doi.org/10.1177/21650799221105176
Bouleh, P. G., Allen, S. J., & Hammer, L. B. (2022). Family-Supportive Supervisor Behaviors and Psychological Distress: A Secondary Analysis across Four Occupational Populations. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(13), 7845. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19137845
Hammer, L. B., Lee, J. D., Mohr, C. D., & Allen, S. J. (2021). Anger and the role of supervisors at work. In A. B. Adler & D. Forbes (Eds.), Anger at work: Prevention, intervention, and treatment in high-risk occupations (pp. 141–171). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000244-006