Department of Psychology
Bottom row (left to right): Tom Hollenstein, Katie Faulkner, Brooke Saks, Marissa Kay, Kayla Liu, Maya Dorantes, Kaarhunyaa Sivapalan, Mackenzie Thomson, Xinyue Zhang, Kavya Patel, Isabelle Chen
Top row (left to right): Abby Bacon, Jane O'Bright, Ava Smallwood, Ryann Smith, Ana Mudric, Adyan Nadeem, Hamish Jansen, Hannah Arsenault, Sarah Cui
Not Pictured: Emma Galarneau, Mya Missere, Ada Savas, Aiden Douglass, Gracyen Mawer, Zoey Purves, Joseph Nanfara, Elle Tencer, Emerson Lavictoire
Current Post-Doctoral Researchers
Dr. Emma Galarneau, Ph.D.
Research Interests: My research explores how adolescents’ experiences of stress can affect the development of emotion regulation repertoires and well-being. Additionally, I am interested in how certain emotion regulation strategies and emotion regulation repertoires might be differently useful or effective for LGBTQ+ youth dealing with unique social-emotional experiences and stressors.
Current MSc/PhD Students
Alexandra Tighe
Current Year: PhD 7
Research Interests: I am interested in socioemotional development across childhood and adolescence. In particular, I am interested in the study of flexibility in emotion regulation and its impact on adolescent development.
Vanessa Martin
Current Year: PhD 5
Research Interests: My research interest surrounds the developmental needs and milestones of adolescents and how parents can meet these needs through acting as a resource to their child. More centrally, my focus is on emotion socialization and how parents can aide their child in developing an effective relationship with their emotions in order to optimize wellbeing throughout adolescence and into adulthood. Additionally, I believe that emotions are inherently social, and that in learning about emotions, we are really learning about ourselves in relation to others. For this reason, I have also taken an interest in identity development as a process, and the role parental autonomy granting plays in this process.
Katie Faulkner
Current Year: PhD 3
Research Interests: My research explores adolescent digital experiences and social and emotional development in digital contexts. I seek to understand how adolescents are using digital technology to achieve social and emotional developmental goals, as well as the parenting processes that unfold that shape adolescent digital experiences.
Xinyue Zhang
Current Year: PhD 2
Research Interests: My research investigates interpersonal psychophysiological coordination in parent-adolescent dyads. Using second-by-second analysis integrating physiological, behavioral, and self-report data, I explore the functional significance of real-time physiological coordination (e.g., dyadic co-regulation, emotion regulation strategies, relationship quality) and the related individual or contextual drivers. Ultimately, I aim to use these physiological indicators to further explore how developmental changes and individual characteristics influence dyadic interaction patterns.
Project Coordinator
Abby Bacon
Current Research Assistants
Brooke Saks
Marissa Kay
Kayla Liu
Maya Dorantes
Kaarhunyaa Sivapalan
Mackenzie Thomson
Kavya Patel
Isabelle Chen
Jane O'Bright
Ava Smallwood
Ryann Smith
Ana Mudric
Adyan Nadeem
Hamish Jansen
Hannah Arsenault
Sarah Cui
Mya Missere
Ada Savas
Aiden Douglas
Gracyen Mawer
Zoey Purves
Joseph Nanfara
Elle Tencer
Emerson Lavictoire
Project Students
Current Honours Students
Hamish Jansen
Research Interests: I am interested in the flexibility of human behaviour, as I believe that understanding how we change in response to environmental demands can move us beyond a binary view of behaviours as inherently adaptive or maladaptive. My current research investigates the relationships between different indices of socioemotional flexibility within parent-child relationships.
Maya Dorantes
Research Interests: I am interested in studying parent-adolescent dynamics, specifically pertaining to the navigation of adolescents’ increasing autonomy and how this negotiation can also occur in digital spaces. My thesis will focus on how negative parental comments about digital activity is associated with adolescents’ perceived emotional closeness with their parent, and whether this association is moderated by overall parent-child relationship quality, as well as parents’ and adolescents’ digital use patterns.