Research Team

Adolescent Dynamics Lab 2023-2024
Adolescent Dynamics Lab - 2023-2024

Bottom row (left to right): Tom Hollenstein, Vanessa Martin, Xiaomei Li, Christina Meier, Sherry Han, Phoebe Macleod Emmer, Sarah Steadman, Isabel Ianni, Khushi Sarah, Diana Romano, Sarah Robichaud 
 
Top row (left to right): Maddie Fellows, Megan Wylie, Katie Faulkner, Haley Miller, Brenna Hartleib, Chloe Levy, Grace Armstrong, Seva Gill, Deanne Pinto, Emma Graham
Not Pictured: Alexandra Tighe, Olivia Berry, Jacqueline Parry, Liza Pleshkevich, Jamie Weiner

Current MSc/PhD Students

Xiaomei Li

Xiaomei Li, Ph.D.

Current Year: Post Doc

Research Interests: My research aims to identify key risk and resilience factors that contribute to the socioemotional well-being of adolescents and families. From the dynamic systems and biopsychosocial perspectives, I examine developmental implications of the flexibility in adolescents’ biobehavioral emotion regulation and parent-adolescent psychophysiological coordination. Currently, I am interested in integrating individual and dyadic regulatory processes at multiple time scales (e.g., moment to moment, day to day, year to year) to better understand how development occurs in relational contexts.

Alexandra Tighe

Alexandra Tighe

Current Year: PhD 6

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.

Megan Wylie

Megan Wylie

Current Year: PhD 4

Research Interests: I am interested in the form, function, and development of expression suppression, an emotion regulation skill. My dissertation examines when and why people use expressive suppression, individual differences in its use, and its impact on psychosocial functioning in naturalistic and day-to-day circumstances.

Vanessa Martin

Vanessa Martin

Current Year: PhD3

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

Katie Faulkner

Current Year: MSc 2

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.

Project Coordinator

Sarah Robichaud

Current Research Assistants

Olivia Berry

Liza Pleshkevich

Emma Graham

Jacqueline Parry

Deanne Pinto

Sarah Steadman

Seva Gill

Deanne Pinto

Khushi Sarah

Chloe Levy

Jamie Weiner

Diana Romano

Brenna Hartleib

Christina Meier 

Isabel Ianni

Project Students

Maddie Fellows

Grace Armstrong

Haley Miller

Current Honours Students

Pheobe Macleod Emmer

Research Interests: I am interested in learning about the ways in which adolescents regulate their emotions, specifically their use of the emotion regulation strategy of expressive suppression. My thesis will explore differences in state-level emotional expressiveness between high and low habitual suppressors.

Sherry Han

Research Interests: I am interested in social load sharing through physical touch and it’s effects on emotional expression, arousal, and emotional repair! My thesis will investigate how handholding in mother-daughter dyads can impact their positive emotional expression and physiological arousal during emotional exchanges.