TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH
IN AFFECT AND COGNITION
Lab Director
Anna Weinberg, Ph.D.
Stony Brook University, 2014
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
Post-docs
Juhyun Park, Ph.D.
Juhyun is a postdoctoral researcher in the TRAC lab. She earned her B.A. and M.A. in Psychology from Seoul National University. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. She is interested in identifying individuals who are vulnerable to depression and anxiety-related disorders using multi-methods (e.g., clinical interviews, behavioral/neural measures, experience sampling method) and advanced statistical methods (e.g., multilevel modeling, mixture modeling). Juhyun is particularly interested in understanding cognitive-affective processes that confer risk for depression and anxiety across lifespan (e.g., emotion regulation) and how they interact with contextual factors (e.g., trauma/stress). In the TRAC lab, Juhyun will be primarily examining the associations between neural responses to reward, positive emotion regulation, stress, and depression among adolescents.
Awards:
American Psychological Association Dissertation Research Award, 2020
Association for Psychological Science Student Grant Competition, 2020
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.
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)
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.
Funding:
Canada Graduate Scholarship-- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (2018)
FRQ-SC Ph.D. Funding (2019-2021)
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.
Funding:
Tomlinson Fellowship, McGill University (2018-2021)
FRQ-S Ph.D. Funding (2020-2022)
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)
Héléna Renault
Héléna is a second-year PhD student in the lab. She completed her undergraduate degree (BA, Honours Psychology) at McGill and is 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)
Grace Allison
Grace is a first-year PhD student in the TRAC lab. She completed her B.A. in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. She is interested in biobehavioral indices of reward and threat processing, social functioning, and stress reactivity, as they relate to the development and maintenance of internalizing psychopathology.
Funding:
Judith Mappin Fellowship, McGill University (2021)
Corinne Sejourne (co-mentored)
Corinne is a first-year PhD student working jointly in the TRAC Lab and Behavioural Medicine Lab. She received her undergraduate degree (B.A., Honors, Human Biology) from Brown University. She is interested in developing treatment interventions to promote healthier stress responses in mothers and caregivers as measured by emotional and physiological markers.
Funding:
Tomlinson Fellowship, McGill University (2021-2023)
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.
Graduate Student Alumni
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