Education
2015 Ph.D. Behavioural Neuroscience, Brock University
2009 M.Sc Developmental Psychology, Queen’s University
2007 Honours B.A. Psychology and Child and Youth Studies, Brock University
Research interests
My research combines methods of developmental psychology and neuroscience to study individual differences in self-regulation and executive functioning during adolescence and early adulthood. These are times of major development to these skills and times when extensive individual differences can be observed. I record event-related potentials (ERPs) from participants’ scalps while they perform simple computer tasks. Furthermore, I focus on how these neural measures can help explain some of the wide variation in individuals’ behavior. For example, why some adolescents consistently engage in dangerous behaviour, while others sail through adolescence without any trouble at all. This is not to say that environmental factors (e.g., family, peers, etc.) do not play a role in these individual differences; in fact, they play a large role! Recently I have been focusing on how adverse childhood experiences (e.g., abuse, death of a loved one, experiencing a natural disaster) and racial stressors (e.g., prejudice and discrimination) can have lasting impact on brain and cognition. Notably, these environmental factors can simultaneously influence both the neural factors and the behavioural outcomes. The complex relationships among all of these variables are not overlooked in my research.
Additionally, together with my colleague Noémie Bergeron-Germain and several student investigators, I am passionate about increasing diversity in EEG research by expanding our traditionally used ways of EEG data collection which end up systematically excluding folks with curly and coiled hair.