Tori was a volunteer research assistant for a study on attachment, coping and relationship quality. Her areas of interest are in personality traits, emotions, and genetics.
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Jaidyn began her PhD in Clinical Psychology in September 2024. Prior to this, she completed her HBA in 2021 and MA in 2024, all supervised by Dr. Mushquash at Lakehead University. Jaidyn’s dissertation is a multimethod examination of how emerging adults use social media to cope with daily stressors. This doctoral research is currently supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) – Doctoral Fellowship and a SSHRC Insight Grant. She has previously been supported by a SSHRC Canada Graduate Master’s Scholarship and an Ontario Graduate Scholarship. She has research experience examining the Dark Triad personality traits (for her MA), emotion regulation, the JoyPop app, Indigenous mental health, and more. Outside of academia, Jaidyn is an avid reader and writer, enjoys alternative and hard rock, and her clinical interests are in forensics/corrections, trauma, and psychosis.
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Kendra Ryan is in her fourth year of the specialized HBA psychology program. For her thesis project she is examining the role of technoference and communication satisfaction on intimacy among couples in romantic relationships. Other research interests include childhood attachment, child and developmental psychology, relationship quality, and mental health.
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Nolan is in the third year of the HBSc of Psychology program, as well as completing a minor in Biology. He is volunteering as a research assistant for a study on attachment, coping and relationship quality. His interests are in mental development, coping mechanisms, and somatoform disorders.
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Izzy is a third-year PhD student in the Clinical Psychology program at Lakehead University. His research focuses on evaluating innovative e-mental health interventions, including mobile apps and generative artificial intelligence chatbots, as well as understanding broader patterns of online behaviour and digital well-being. He is also interested in addiction recovery, peer support and mutual-help programs, personality-matched interventions, and how individual differences shape engagement with digital technologies over time. His emerging neuroimaging research also examines how generative AI use and cognitive offloading may relate to brain systems involved in memory and executive functioning.
His current work includes a pilot/feasibility trial evaluating ChatGPT as a tool to support postsecondary student emotion regulation and a longitudinal study examining problematic social media use, online gaming, and sports betting among Canadian adults.
Izzy is a Fellow of the Digital, Inclusive, Virtual, and Equitable Research Training (DIVERT) in Mental Health Platform. Alongside his research, he is passionate about clinical work, supervision, and mentoring undergraduate students. Outside of academia, he is an avid tennis and basketball player and enjoys spending time with his partner, his Westie Winnie, and family.
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Laija Beaulieu is in her second year of the HBA of Psychology program. She is currently a volunteer research assistant supporting a study on promoting resilience in undergraduate students. Laija’s interests surround early social relationships, childhood development, coping strategies, parent and child attachment relationships, and how families cope with stressful or difficult life events.
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Mary Cassano completed her undergraduate degree in Psychology and is currently volunteering in the lab.
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Allie began the PhD program in Clinical Psychology in 2017. She will be completing her residency with the Northern Ontario Psychology Internship Consortium. Her dissertation research involved examining the relationship between attachment in childhood to primary caregivers, attachment within romantic relationships, abilities to manage emotions and conflict, and romantic relationship functioning. Allie’s other areas of interest include implementation science and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy. For her Master’s thesis, she investigated the factors that facilitate or hinder the delivery and sustainability of Dialectal Behaviour Therapy across programs and organizations in Thunder Bay. Allie’s graduate studies are supported by funds from the Ontario Graduate Scholarship.
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Shakira began the Clinical Psychology PhD program at Lakehead University in 2020. Her area of research involves the investigation of vulnerability and protective factors for maladjustment in emerging adults. Shakira completed a MA in Applied Psychology at Laurentian University, where her Master’s thesis focused on the role of perfectionism and emotion dysregulation in predicting compulsive exercise. More recently, she completed a MA in Clinical Psychology at Lakehead University. Her Master’s thesis evaluated explanatory factors of maladjustment in emerging adults transitioning to university, including perfectionism and a sense of mattering to others. For her dissertation research, she is particularly interested in examining the influence of a perfectionistic social environment and individual levels of perfectionism on daily experiences of maladjustment in emerging adults. Shakira’s graduate studies are supported by funds from the Ontario Graduate Scholarship program, Social Sciences Humanities Research Council Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship, Social Sciences Humanities Research Council Graduate Scholarship Doctoral Award, and St. Joseph’s Care Group Award in Applied Health Research. Shakira is completing her doctoral clinical psychology residency training at Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences with the General Adult Track and and Forensic Program. During leisure time, she enjoys the outdoors, exercising, and watching reality television.
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Angela began the PhD program in Clinical Psychology at Lakehead University in 2020. Prior to that, she also completed her Master’s degree under the supervision of Dr. Mushquash. Her MA thesis examined the benefits of journaling using a smartphone app, and she has also been involved in evaluating this smartphone app as a resilience-promoting tool more generally. Her doctoral research focuses on victimhood as a personality trait and its relationship to perceptions of trauma, daily interpersonal stress, and PTSD symptoms. She is also interested in teaching and has taught PSYC-3018 - Psychological Disorders in Adulthood at the undergraduate level. Angela’s graduate studies are supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. She has previously been supported by the Ontario Graduate Scholarship.
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Kara is a Masters student in the Clinical Psychology program at Lakehead University. For her Master’s thesis project, she examined the role of executive function on the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and functional outcomes in emerging adults. Her research interests include early intervention, wellness intervention, attachment in childhood and paediatric health/wellness. Her past research areas include DBT, resilience, as well as mental health and addictions.
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Melissa was a volunteer research assistant for a study involving a smartphone App designed to promote resilience in undergraduate students by supporting the development of emotion regulation and cognitive organization skills. Melissa’s areas of interest include personality, mental health, and spirituality.
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Laura began the the PhD program in Clinical Psychology in 2017. She will be completing her residency with the Edmonton Consortium Clinical Psychology Residency program from 2021-2022. Broadly speaking, Laura’s research interests involve examining biopsychosocial influences on eating behaviour with the aim of enhancing current understanding of eating disorders, disordered eating, and weight management. Her dissertation research seeks to examine the role of heart rate variability, attentional bias to food, and perceptions of safety in eliciting stress-induced disinhibited eating among restrained eaters. For her Master’s thesis, Laura explored the role of the mirror neuron system in predicting individuals’ susceptibility to the social modelling of eating effect, whereby individuals tend to match the quantity of their food intake to their eating companions.
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Karin was in the MA Program in Clinical Psychology at Lakehead University. Broadly, her research interests involve investigating how individual differences and situational factors relate to the development, maintenance, and treatment of internalizing disorders. In her MA thesis project she will investigate how forgiveness may affect the association between past childhood adversity and mental health difficulties in adulthood.
Vamika began the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program at Lakehead University in 2022. Her area of research involves investigating the effectiveness of a mental health and well-being-focused smartphone app for emerging adults. Vamika completed her Master’s in Clinical Psychology at Lakehead University in 2022. Her Master’s thesis focused on the role of stress and coping in the relationship between childhood adversity and alcohol outcomes among emerging adults. The Ontario Graduate Scholarship supports Vamika’s current graduate studies. Her work has previously been funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship. Vamika has clinical experience in psychoeducational assessments with children and youth and assessment and intervention with adults.
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Elizabeth began the MA program in Clinical Psychology at Lakehead University in 2021. Her research interests involve understanding the impacts of adverse experiences on individual adjustment and regulation capacity as well as interventions to mitigate maladaptive behaviours. Her MA thesis will seek to define a minimal clinically important difference for emotion regulation through the evaluation of an e-mental health resilience-building tool, the JoyPopTM app, with youth seeking mental health treatment in Thunder Bay. Elizabeth's graduate studies are supported by funds from the Social Sciences Humanities Research Council Canada Graduate Scholarship and St. Joseph's Care Group Award in Applied Health Research.
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Anastasia graduated from the HBSc Psychology program, with a minor in Biology. She was a research coordinator in the lab. Her areas of interests include language and communication disorders, neuropsychology, and child development.
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Robyn is a Research Assistant in the lab. She began the HBSc Biology program in 2020, and has been assisting with various studies in the lab since her first year. She mainly assisted with data collection for a study looking at the influence of a perfectionistic social environment/personal ideals on maladjustment in undergraduate students. For her undergraduate thesis, Robyn is researching the effects of a combination drug treatment on skeletal muscle physiology at NOSM University. She aspires to work as a physician in the future. Outside of the lab, Robyn spends her spare time going to the gym, playing/watching sports, and spending time with family.
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Shaelynn graduated from Lakehead University in May 2023 with an HBSc in Psychology. Her thesis was on the differences between first year and fourth year undergraduate students in daily stress and coping.
She really enjoyed working under the supervision of Dr. Musquash (and co-supervisor Angela!). She had a really great and supportive group of peers in her honour thesis seminar.
From the birth of her son in July 2023 into 2024, Shaelynn will be focusing on her family in the role of a homemaker.
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Chi completed her BA, honoring in psychology at St. Thomas University in 2022. After graduation, she began working as a clinical research assistant at St. John Regional Hospital and a volunteer research assistant at the lab. Her areas of research interests include multi-dimensional perfectionism, stress and burn-out, depression, impostor syndrome, personality disorders, and psychotherapies. Chi hopes to go to graduate school after 2-3 years of working to gain more research experiences.
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