Dr. Mac Ma obtained his MPhil and PhD from The City University of Hong Kong. Trained as a social psychologist, Mac utilizes a mixture of interdisciplinary theories to investigate human psychological and behavioral changes at both the individual and group levels to yield research findings which are informative to both the academic community and government policymakers.

By leveraging the power of big data (e.g., data obtained from texts, archives, and web search engines) and using advanced statistical methods (e.g., multilevel analysis and time series analysis), Mac investigates various topics which center around the research areas of 1) social psychology (e.g., personal values, collective action, and interpersonal relationships), 2) geographical psychology (e.g., mapping the spatial organization of psychological phenomena at an area-level; effects of geographical variation in psychological and behavioral variables on macro-level outcomes (e.g., morbidity/mortality rates and fertility trends)),  3) socioecological psychology (e.g., effects of socioecological factors (e.g., pathogen prevalence) on human attitudinal and behavioral responses), 4) cultural dynamics (e.g., temporal cultural changes which occur at the population level and the causes and outcomes of such changes), and 5) health promotion (e.g., disease preventive and health enhancing behaviors; causes and effects of online sexual behaviors).  

Mac makes research efforts to show how psychology is closely connected with our daily life.