People | Finn LAND Lab

Amy Finn
CV
[email protected]
4002 Sidney Smith Hall

Josie Davies
[email protected]
Lab Manager

Hello! I am a recent graduate of Psychology at Cardiff University, in the UK. I am excited to further my knowledge of cognitive development throughout the lifespan and to work with this fantastic lab! Previously I have researched whether differences in the accents of experimenters changes children's biases towards same-accented speakers. In my spare time I enjoy photography, meeting new people and exploring new places, so I am very excited to explore more of Toronto this year.

Keela Thomson
[email protected]
Post-Doctoral Fellow
I received a joint PhD in Psychology and Social and Decision Sciences from Carnegie Mellon University. I study cognitive psychology with a focus on intelligence and decision-making. At the moment I am attempting to reconcile the notion of the positive manifold - that a single factor 'general g' underlies all individual differences in intelligence - with emerging evidence from dual systems approaches that Type 1 (procedural, implicit) cognition appears uncorrelated with g.

Johnny Dubois
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@Johnny_Dubois_
Graduate Student, Psychology
I graduated from Brandon University in Brandon, Manitoba, with a BSc (hons) in Psychology, working with Dr. Nicholas Watier on mindfulness and cognition. Prior to grad school I worked as a research assistant at Pine River Institute, a residential treatment center for youth with addiction, near Shelburne, ON. My PhD work focuses on exploring developmental changes in implicit/non-declarative memory, and the neural correlates of these processes.

Erika Wharton-Shukster
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@whartonshumthin
Graduate Student, Psychology
I recently completed my Honours Bachelor of Science in Psychology at the University of Toronto. Previously, I had the pleasure of working as study coordinator in a neuroimaging lab studying functional neurosurgery at the Toronto Western Hospital. As someone who finds children as fascinating as they are entertaining, I’m excited to study their learning! Specifically, I’m hoping to investigate the mechanisms behind how children process and remember information differently than adults and across development. Outside the lab, I play drums in two bands, write music, and compulsively add to my plant collection.

Justine Vorvis
[email protected]
Graduate Student, Psychology
Hi! I just completed my undergraduate degree in the Psychology Research Specialist and Neuroscience Major programs at U of T, and am excited to begin PhD studies with Dr. Amy Finn and Dr. Donald Mabbott this fall. I am broadly interested in research with the potential to inform educational practice and policy. Recently, I’ve been especially curious as to how prior learning and performance shape subsequent learning, and how cognitive and neural development vary based on contextual factors like income. Outside of the lab, I love to sing, play piano, draw, bake, and spend time biking and running outdoors!

Bailey Agard
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Graduate Student, Psychology
Hi 🙂 My name is Bailey, and I am so excited to be starting my PHD in the LAND lab. I recently graduated from York University with a Specialized Honours BA in Cognitive Science. This past year, I worked as a Summer Research Opportunities Program student, then as a research assistant in the Child Language and Speech Studies lab at the University of Toronto Mississauga. There, I developed a project to look at how a speaker's accent may affect children's memory for what was said. I am eager to explore questions in cognitive development and psycholinguistics. Outside the lab, I can be found reading, making puzzles, playing piano, and laughing at dog videos.

Jaden Dilda
Graduate Student
Hey! I’m a PhD student supervised by Dr. Donald Mabbott at SickKids and I’m working with the LAND lab to study how socioeconomic status affects both biological and cognitive development. My research typically involves MRI analysis of the impact of socioeconomic status on brain structure and organization, so I’m excited for the opportunity to work with this group to approach the same questions, but from a different angle. In my spare time, I enjoy reading fantasy, cooking, and hiking.

Akshita Srivastava
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Research Assistant, Psychology and Neuroscience
Hi! I’m a fourth-year undergraduate student, double majoring in psychology and neuroscience. Previously, I’ve worked in a variety of roles with children who have learning disabilities, and am therefore very interested in studying the development of memory, language acquisition, and other cognitive skills. In my spare time, I love baking, reading, and painting!

Rowan Danton
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Research Assistant, Psychology and Human Biology
Hi! I am a fourth-year student at UofT studying Physiology with a double minor in Psychology and Human Biology. I have a background in youth development and in the future I would love to research learning with a focus on neurodivergence. Outside the lab, I love cycling around Toronto, thrifting and trying out new recipes.

Insiya Samji
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Honours Thesis Student, Mental Health Studies and Neuroscience
Hey! My name is Insiya, and I am a fourth-year undergraduate student doing a double major in Mental health studies and Neuroscience at UofT. Overall, my research interests lie in neuropsychology. Specifically in learning processes, memory, perception, personality, and behaviour across development. Aside from my academic life, I binge read fiction novels, play soccer, and hang out with my family (including my cat Leo) and friends!

Shelby Suhan
Mini-Thesis Student, Psychology Research Specialist and Linguistics
Hello! I am a third-year Psychology Research Specialist and Linguistics minor student at the University of Toronto. I am passionate about mental health, learning, and early childhood development. My past research has explored aspects of psycholinguistics such as language acquisition in young children and sentence processing in Tagalog adults. Currently, I am interested in studying neuroplasticity in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and post-traumatic growth for high-performing individuals working in the arts. I have a particular interest in the future of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy practices and their effects on learning. I plan to pursue graduate studies in clinical psychology and look forward to researching learning in young children at the LAND Lab this year. Outside of campus, I enjoy crocheting and teaching singing lessons at my vocal studio.

Isaac Wetmore
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Lab Programmer, Cognitive Science & Statistics
I am a fourth year undergrad student studying Cognitive Science and Statistics. In the past, I have worked with developing programs for labs related to social prejudice. In general, I love to combine my technical skills with my love for demystifying different aspects of the mind, such as memory, learning, and perception. In my spare time, I run track, play games, and love exploring new places and meeting new people!

Alyssa (Mengyuan) Li
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Lab Programmer, Computer Science & Psychology
I am a third year undergraduate student studying Computer Science and Psychology in University Of Toronto. I have rich experience working in psychology-related lab driven by my passion for applying professional programming skills to the field of cognition, memory and brain. In my spare time, I love all outdoor activities such as hiking and canoeing, I also enjoy creating healthy recipes in different styles!

Julie (Duofei) Liu
Research Assistant, Psychology and Anthropology
Hello there! My name is Julie. I’m an undergraduate student pursuing a double major in psychology and anthropology. I’m interested in studying language acquisition, learning plasticity, and education throughout children’s development. Outside of academics, I love playing the piano, reading, and snowboarding!

Lorraine Liu
Research Assistant, Psychology and Neuroscience

Hi, my name is Lorraine, and I am a second-year student doing a specialist in psychology with a major in neuroscience and a minor in statistics. I am interested in investigating the mechanisms of memory in the human brain, focusing on the impact of significant events on memory formation and retrieval. In my spare time, I enjoy sports (particularly tennis, hiking, and weight training), being in nature, and spending time with my family.

Anusha Ramesh
Research Assistant, Psychology and Nutritional Sciences
I am an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto doing a double major with Psychology & Nutritional Sciences with a minor in Physiology. I am interested in child development especially in terms of trauma and learning. In particular, how and why are some children so resilient. Additionally, I am excited to gain hands-on experience working in a lab and hope to work up to collaborate with other members of the lab on my own project! Outside the lab, I like to sing and am actively a part of the UofT theatre scene 🙂

Kate Zhang
Research Assistant, Psychology Specialist and Linguistics
I am a third-year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto doing Psychology specialist and Linguistics major. I’m interested in the language development in childhood. Specifically, in the future, I wish to do research about how cognitive abilities and neural systems contribute to children’s language acquisition. In my spare time, I love watching anime, traveling with friends, and bulletin journaling.

Alumni - Post-docs and Students

Alexandra Decker
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Posdoct fellow at MIT.
Website

Yaelan Jung
CV
Website
[email protected]
Postdoctoral Researcher, Emroy University
Yaelan is a postdoc in the Dilks Lab working with Dr. Daniel Dilks. She previously worked as a postdoc with Dr. Lauren Emberson at Princeton University. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of Toronto, working with Dr. Dirk Bernhardt-Walther and Dr. Amy Finn. Her research is focused on high-level vision and how top-down factors (e.g., tasks, attention, and learning) interact with visual perception. She also asks how this interaction occurs in the developing brain. She uses fMRI and other behavioral measures to investigate these questions.

Jie Ren
Website
[email protected]

Andrew Bauer
Lead Data Scientist, FICO

Samantha Gualtieri
[email protected]
Website

Post-Doctoral Fellow Alumni
I received my PhD in Developmental Psychology from the University of Waterloo, where I found that children and adults use information very differently, and made some interesting discoveries about the emergence of heuristics and biases in decision-making. During my post-doc, I’m examining how the unique ways in which children experience the world (via their limited knowledge, and developing perceptual and cognitive abilities) actually help them conquer many incredible learning feats.

Tess Forest
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@tessforest
Graduate Student, Psychology

Hello! I'm Tess, a PhD student in the LAND lab. I grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, and completed my undergraduate degree in Cognitive Systems and Linguistics at the University of British Columbia. I also spent some time working at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and at the Max Plank Institute for Psycholinguistics, in the Netherlands. I'm interested in how language learning mechanisms operate, their development over time, and how that contributes to differences in language learning abilities between adults and children. In my free time I like to cook, knit, and spend time outside... either running, backpacking, skiing, or canoeing!

Daniela Schönberger
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Visiting Graduate Student, Psychology
Hello! My name is Daniela and I'm a visiting Ph.D. candidate from Brigitte Roeder's Babylab in Hamburg, Germany. I'm broadly interested in learning and memory from a developmental cognitive neuroscience perspective. For my visit in the fall, I am looking forward to finding out more about the development of statistical learning/memory and the development of neural event segmentation. I am very excited to meet all members of the FinnLAND lab! I will be in the lab from September to November 2022.