LaB Director
Our
Team
Todd Cunningham
Todd is a faculty member in the Applied Psychology and Human Development department of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. He completed his Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Hospital for Sick Children after earning a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Toronto. His area of expertise is adaptive educational technology, specifically the circumvention of students’ academic weaknesses to help them better attain and retain knowledge.
Our Team
LaB Director
Todd Cunningham PhD C.Psych
Todd is a faculty member in the Applied Psychology and Human Development department of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. He completed his Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Hospital for Sick Children after earning a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Toronto. His area of expertise is adaptive educational technology, specifically the circumvention of students’ academic weaknesses to help them better attain and retain knowledge.
LaB Director
Graduate Students
Harrison McNaughtan MA
Current Program
PhD Candidate
School and Clinical Child Psychology
Previous Education
MA in School and Clinical Child Psychology from OISE
MA in Developmental Psychology and Education from OISE
BScH in Psychology from Queen's University
Research Interests
Harrison's current research focuses on developing and validating ATSelect.org, a free online tool to help teacher's and clinicians find the best suited assistive technologies for their students/clients. Harrison is currently conducting focus groups with teachers to gather their perspectives on using the tool, and will soon be moving into a validation study seeking to demonstrate the efficacy of ATSelect.org empirically.
Francis Wall MA
Current Program
PhD Candidate
School and Clinical Child Psychology
Previous Education
MA in School and Clinical Child Psychology from OISE
BScH in Psychology from University of Toronto Scarborough
Research Interests
Francis is currently studying the use of assistive technology for children with difficulties in writing. He hopes to identify ways in which assistive technology can be used to bypass areas of specific weakness, such as planning, organizing, or producing words to reduce the cognitive load of tasks that may otherwise be overwhelming.
Emily Staffiere MA
Current Program
PhD Candidate
School and Clinical Child Psychology
Previous Education
MA in School and Clinical Child Psychology from OISE
BScH in Psychology from Wilfrid Laurier University
Research Interests
Emily’s research examines the trajectory of typing skill development for elementary students in response to direct typing instruction. This research will inform intervention recommendations for students with writing challenges so they can develop their typing skills when provided a laptop as an assistive technology, and in doing so optimize its use.
Andrea Zians MA
Current Program
PhD Student
Developmental Psychology and Education
Previous Education
MA in Psychology from OISE
BA in Psychology from Yeshiva University
Research Interests
Andrea's research focuses on post-secondary students and their usage of supports and resources that increase academic success. She is primarily interested in how under-represented groups in post-secondary settings utilize resources and supports like assistive technology and learning strategies.
Damian Page Ma
Current Program
PhD Student
School and Clinical Child Psychology
Previous Education
MA in School and Clinical Child Psychology from OISE
BA Honours in Psychology from the University of Victoria
Research Interests
Damian's research focuses on exploring factors that affect the early identification of emerging mental health disorders in children. Specifically, he is interested in the association between mental health literacy and the ability of teachers to discriminate between developmental typical student behaviour and behaviours indicative of emerging mental health disorders.
Lisa Phyllis MA
Current Program
PhD Student
Developmental Psychology and Education
Previous Education
MA in Early Child Studies from Toronto Metropolitan University
Research Interests
Lisa's research focuses on educational equality for children identified with special education needs. Her dissertation focuses specifically on achievement, collaboration and coordinated service provision.
Kunio Hessel MA
Current Program
PhD Student
School and Clinical Child Psychology
Previous Education
MA in School and Clinical Child Psychology from OISE
MSc in Psychology from The University of Western Ontario
BCogSci(H) in Cognitive Science from Carleton University
Research Interests
Kunio's research interests involve barriers to education and school engagement in refugee high school students. His doctoral research will expand on his master's thesis and investigate ways in which refugee students and their families, schools, and communities can tackle barriers to education and work towards creating more equitable educational opportunities for refugee youth.
Shona Mistry MA
Current Program
PhD Student
School and Clinical Child Psychology
Previous Education
MA in Developmental Psychology & Education from OISE
MEd in Developmental Psychology and Education from OISE
BA in Psychology and Neuroscience from McGill University
Research Interests
Shona's research focuses on the interaction between learning challenges and disabilities and youth substance use. Her prior MA thesis focused on the role of family factors in substance use treatment for youth with learning disabilities. The aim of my research is to understand the intersection between education and developmental psychology when treating youth with severe mental health challenges and addictive behaviors.
Paige Vaccarella ba
Current Program
MA Student
School and Clinical Child Psychology
Previous Education
BA Hons. in Child and Youth Studies and Psychology from Brock University
Research Interests
Paige is extremely passionate about creating accessible and barrier-free education for neurodiverse students. Specifically, her research focus on identifying the factors that prevent students with learning disabilities (LD) from using assistive technology in the classroom. This research aims to capture the students’ point of view and use this information to improve the way that AT is introduced and implemented in the classroom setting.
jessica wing yee ho MEd
Current Program
MA Student
School and Clinical Child Psychology
Previous Education
MEd in Developmental Psychology and Education from OISE
BSc in Psychology and Human Biology from the University of Toronto
Research Interests
Jessica's research focuses on the development of accurate screening tools for children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
LIRAN Leidershnaider BSc
Current Program
MA Student
School and Clinical Child Psychology
Previous Education
Spec. Hons. BSc from York University majoring in Psychology
Research Interests
Liran's research focuses on, broadly, cognitive load. A central question to his research is "how can we tell when someone's cognitive load has 'peaked', or 'reached capacity'?". Liran's Master's Thesis will explore how to objectively measure school-aged children's maximum cognitive load during various handwriting tasks using face-tracking technology.
Research Placement Students
These students have joined our lab for one school year to complete independent research projects as part of undergraduate and graduate courses.
Eliana Barbuzzi
ROP Student
Charlotte Choy
ROP Student
Jessica Sah
ROP Student
Hannah Cheng
Independent Research Placement Student
Volunteers
These lab members volunteer their time to support a variety of on-going research studies happening in our lab.
Soha Salman
Research Assistant
Former Graduate Students
Bronwyn Lamond
Former Lab Members
Safiyyah Tahirah Alli
Calista Barber
Casiah Cagan
Audrey Chiu
Mirelle D'Mello
Monica Farag
Maarib Kirmani Haseeb
Shenali Lowe
Caity Lynch
Jordyn Manis
Megha Manoj
Stephanie Morris
Rudra Patel
Zarfishan Qureshi
Hannah Santilli
Shentong Yan
Yiyuan Zhang
Christina Zakala