Lab Director

Anna Weinberg, Ph.D.

Stony Brook University, 2014

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Canada Research Chair in Clinical Neuroscience

Associate Professor
Department of Psychology 
McGill University 
anna.weinberg@mcgill.ca 

Office:  2001 McGill College, 1407
          ++1 (514) 398 4672
Lab:     2001 McGill College, 1450

Graduate Students

Aislinn Sandre

Aislinn is a sixth-year PhD student in the TRAC Lab. She received her undergraduate (B.Sc. Honours, Psychology) degree from Queen’s University. She is currently working on a research project to understand how child maltreatment creates maladaptive patterns of attention toward threatening social cues. Aislinn is also interested in examining intergenerational effects of maternal stress on infant stress responsivity and vulnerability for future psychopathology. Aislinn is currently on internship. 

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Funding:

Judith Mappin Fellowship, McGill University (2016)

Canada First Research Excellence Fund, Healthy Brains for Healthy Lives, Graduate Student Fellowship (2018-2019)

FRQ-S Ph.D. Funding (2019-2021)

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Awards:

SPR Student Poster Award, 2017

Trottier Fellowship, McGill University

Iulia Banica

Iulia is a fifth-year PhD student. She received her B.Sc. in Honours Psychology from the University of Waterloo. Iulia is particularly interested in investigating the effects of stress and abuse on error and threat processing, and how these relate to anxiety and depression.

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Funding:

Canada Graduate Scholarship-- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (2018)

FRQ-SC Ph.D. Funding (2019-2021)

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Awards:

SPR Student Poster Award, 2020

Clara Freeman

Clara is a fourth-year PhD student in the lab. She completed her B.A. in psychology at Cornell University. Clara is interested in how social information processing and reward relate to depression and other psychopathology across development. 

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Funding:

Tomlinson Fellowship, McGill University (2018-2021) 

FRQ-S Ph.D. Funding (2020-2022)

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Awards:

SPR Student Poster Award, 2019

Lidia Panier

Lidia is a second-year PhD student in the lab. She completed her M.A. (Social Sciences: Psychology) at the University of Chicago. She is interested in the effects of stress on reward processing across depression and anxiety, as well as the unique differences between these internalizing disorders. 

Funding:

Canada First Research Excellence Fund, Healthy Brains for Healthy Lives, Graduate Student Fellowship (2021-2022)

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Héléna Renault

Héléna is a second-year PhD student in the lab. They completed their undergraduate degree (BA, Honours Psychology) at McGill and are interested in how neural responses to reward interact with various types of stress as well as how these factors relate to depression. 

Funding: 

Judith Mappin Fellowship, McGill University (2020)

Canada Graduate Scholarship – Canadian Institutes of Health Research (2021)

Lab Coordinators

Joelle Schaffer

Joelle completed her senior honours thesis at the TRAC Lab exploring the associations between neural responses to social reward, stress during the COVID-19 pandemic, and depressive symptoms in a sample of mothers and daughters. She is now working as lab coordinator and is continuing research on neural risks for depressive and anxiety disorders, and their interactions with life stress.

Maya Ahia

Maya completed her undergraduate degree in Psychology at McGill and is passionate about studying the etiology and biopsychosocial markers of different disorders, through a strength-based research lens. She is now working as a lab coordinator at the TRAC Lab, exploring the neural correlates of emotional processing.

Undergraduate Students

Seonwoo Hong

Seon is a 4th-year Honours Psychology student at McGill. She completed her junior honours thesis at the TRAC Lab, and worked as the lab coordinator, funded by the Science Undergraduate Research Award. She is now working on her project, examining the association between adverse parenting styles and neural responses to social feedback, and is involved in data collection for ongoing studies.

Helen Liu

Helen Liu is a fourth year Honours Psychology student at McGill. She is interested in the development and maintenance of anxiety and depressive disorders, and hopes to pursue clinical psychology to continue conducting research in this field and provide psychotherapy to those afflicted with these disorders. In her free time, Helen loves camping, reading, and exploring Montreal neighbourhoods!

Fiona Sewall

Fiona is a fourth-year honours undergraduate psychology student. This is her first year working in the TRAC lab, after completing her junior honours thesis under the supervision of Dr. Oliver Hardt. She is interested in how the interaction between biology and environment can give rise to different forms of psychopathology, specifically anxiety and depression. She hopes to continue on to get her master’s in psychology.

Jasmine Kotsiopoulos

I am a 3rd year Honours Psychology student at McGill and will be completing my senior honours thesis at the TRAC Lab. My project will explore how stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the brain and how this effect may predict forms of psychopathology, such as depression and anxiety. After graduation, I hope to pursue a career in clinical psychology.

Lina Badran

Lina is a third-year undergraduate student at McGill University,  majoring in psychology. She's excited to get more hands-on experience in research and data analysis. She's also interested in how EEG data can be used to determine risks and make predictions on individuals' mental health. Lina plans to pursue graduate studies in clinical psychology.

Talia Schroeder

Talia is a third-year McGill student in Honours Psychology. She is currently working on her junior honours thesis in the TRAC Lab. She is interested in researching how neural responses interact with environmental factors to predict vulnerability to mental illness. She aspires to go to grad school to become an adolescent psychologist.

Ghislaine Niyonkuru

Ghislaine is a fourth-year Psychology student at McGill working jointly at the TRAC Lab and the McGill Youth Study Team (MYST). She is interested in child psychopathology and the development of psychological well-being in vulnerable populations and non-western cultures. In relation to child psychopathology, she aims to learn more about how to better disseminate information about the treatments and recognition of psychological disorders in children.

Loran Carpentier

Loran is a fourth-year Honours Psychology student at McGill University. He is currently working on his senior honours thesis, examining how neural responses to rewards and threat are related to emotions undergraduate students experience during the COVID-19 pandemic. Loran is also interested in the neuropsychology behind anxiety disorders and neurodevelopmental disorders. He wishes to work with teenagers and young adults in the future, either as a clinician or as a research psychologist.  

Paige Ethridge, Ph.D.: Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital, Edmonton

Undergraduate Alumni

Ashley Jussaume (former lab coordinator)

Chloe White (research coordinator, Biopsychosocial Examination of Eating Patterns [BEEP] lab)

Viveca Lee (research assistant, Eating Disorders Continuum, Douglas Hospital)

Alexandra MacTavish (graduate student, child clinical psychology, University of Windsor)

Kiki Brabander (graduate student, Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University)

Ella Christiaans (graduate student, Educational Psychology, McGill University)

Fauzia Saiyed (Counseling Psychology Doctoral Student at Lehigh University)

Claire Punturieri (research assistant, Experimental therapeutics and pathophysiology branch of the NIMH)

Ariel Boyle (graduate student, Clinical Psychology, Concordia University)

Iman Lahouaoula (medical student, UBC)

Erin Matsuba (graduate student, psychology, Syracuse University)

Manlu Liu (graduate student, University of British Columbia)

Jamie Borenstein-Laurie (graduate student, Clinical Psychology, Concordia University)

Emma Stewart (graduate student, Neuroscience, University of Western Ontario)

Benazir Hodzic-Santor (medical student, University of Toronto)

Insub Kim (graduate student, Stanford University)

Tiana Corovic (law school, University of Toronto)

Agnessa Karapetian (PhD student in cognitive computational neuroscience, Einstein Center for Neurosciences, Berlin)

Julia Ferrone (graduate student, PsyD in School Psychology, Adelphi University)

Nicole Ledwos (graduate student, integrated program in neuroscience, McGill University)

Hazal Ozlen (project manager, Villeneuve lab, the Douglas)

Anne Baptiste (graduate student, Concordia University)

Emily Snook (medical student, University of Toronto)

Mert Kimyaci (research assistant in the Regulation, Affect and Development Lab, McGill University)

Wendy Wang

Sasha Novozhilova

Seffie Yip

David Figeuroa Perez

Jiaqi Zhao

Erica Di Caprio

Veronica Rusu

Emily Demers

Karin Cinalioglu

Charlene Osei-Afrifa

Ruby Atesoglu

Alison Yang

Sarah Bernier 

Emilie Hess

Blair Lavery

Dila Bilal

Catherine Labasi-Sammartino

Christine Koppenaal

​Samantha Scholes

Sarah Lefebvre

Margot Kelly-Hedrick

Christine Koppenaal

Charles LaPierre

Shannon Dawe

Sarah Sieur

Kelly Cool

Jennifer Burns

Shona Mistry

Sasha Topilova

Zainab Yahya

Bettina Trabelsi

Rachel Shepherd

Katie Mound

Ellie Basra

Oliver Huang

Friends &

Collaborators

Autumn Kujawa, Vanderbilt University

Melanie Dirks, McGill University

Anja Riesel, University Hamburg

Sarah Racine, McGill University

Alexis May, Wesleyan University

Greg Hajcak, Florida State University

Roman Kotov, Stony Brook University

Stewart Shankman, Northwestern University

E. David Klonsky, University of British Columbia

Christopher Patrick, Florida State University

Norbert Kathmann, Humboldt University

Dan Foti, Purdue University 

Signy Sheldon, McGill University