Monica Castelhano
Principal Investigator

I came to Queen's in July 2007 after a position as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with Keith Rayner and Sandy Pollatsek. I completed my doctorate degree at Michigan State Univerisity in 2005 while working with John Henderson.

My main research interests include: scene perception, memory for high-level information, visual attention, eye movement control, visual search, object recognition, and reading.

 

 

Nida Latif
Graduate Student

I am a second year Master's student in the area of Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science. I graduated from McMaster University with an Honours degree in Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour. My research interests lie within the area of visual, perceptual and cognitive processes associated with the mental representations of non-verbal cues that enable us to make social judgments.

Interests outside of the lab include theatre, film, music and in the true form of a geek, finding research that can combine Psychology with my interests.

 

 

Richelle Witherspoon
Graduate Student

I am a second year Master's student in the BBCS stream of psychology. My current research is focused on the mechanisms underlying memory effects in rapid scene identification as well as the influences on visual search by the nature of our physical interactions with the object being searched.

When not in the lab, I get laughs from reading 'popular psychology' articles, playing sports (poorly), or just relaxing with my puppy.

 

 

Jen Brunet
Lab Coordinator/ Research Assistant

I graduated from Queen’s in 2010 with a B.Sc, Honours in Psychology and a general degree in Biology. I completed my undergraduate thesis with Dr. Caroline Pukall analyzing the relationship between anxiety and sexual arousal in woman with and without provoked vestibulodynia.

I am currently working as the lab coordinator for the QVCL as well as a research assistant in the Sexual Health Research Lab. Although my main research interest lies in the field of female sexuality, I have recently been captivated by all things related to the visual cognition world! In my spare time, you can find me having tea with friends or in my kitchen baking.

 

 

Jordan Bawks
Volunteer Research Assistant

I'm a fourth-year looking to graduate with an Honours B.Sc degree in Psychology and a minor in Life Sciences. I'm writing my honours thesis on genetic and environmental contributions to major depression with Dr. Kate Harkness. As a research assistant in the QVCL, I am currently doing work on visual search in scenes.

When not involved with school work I like to pass my time reading, playing squash and hanging out. I hope to go to medical school and eventually become a physician scientist.

 

 

Nathan Braniff
Computer Programmer

I am currently in my fourth year of a Cognitive Science degree. At the QVCL, I am presently working on a program designed to be used for eye tracking analyses.

I am the coding King.

 

 

Sarah Eves
Volunteer Research Assistant

I am a 4th year Psychology undergrad at Queen’s and grew upon Wolfe Island. At the QVCL, I am assisting with a few research projects- designing stimuli, creating advertising material and running participants. I have experience in graphic design and am curious about a wide-range of research in psychology. Outside of the lab, I have interests in mental health promotion, creative endeavours (poetry, innovative projects),community organization (especially small, rural populations) and social equity initiatives (youth empowerment, LGBT activism, and mental health stigma reduction). 

 

 

Yu qing liu
Volunteer Research Assistant

I am a second year Psychology student with a passion to understand the human psyche. After receiving my Bachelor of Science degree I hope to pursue graduate studies in clinical psychology/neuroscience. I am currently working on a project examining negative priming with the QVCL group. In my free time, I like to read, swim and play guitar.

 

 

 

Effie Pereira
Research Assistant

I graduated from Queen's in 2008 with an Honours degree in Psychology and a minor in Economics. Since then, I've worked part-time at the QVCL as a lab coordinator, along with a full-time position at the Sleep Disorders Lab as a clinical research associate. As such, my background is in both the cognitive and clinical field, but my true interest lies in the synthesis of the two, an area I hope to pursue in my graduate studies.

My current research is focused on how we use scene information and object properties in visual search, but I am also conducting studies investigating search strategies in arrays and deconstructing scene gist and visual layout. Apart from work, I enjoy stats, baseball, puppies, live music, livelier debates, good books, and decadent desserts.

 

 

Harrison Ritz
Volunteer Research Assistant

I am a second-year student working towards a bachelor of science degree in psychology with a potential minor in biology. My interests are generally in the biological basis of executive functions. At the QVCL I am assisting with research on scene gist and visual search processing.

Outside of the lab I am involved in various alcohol support programs on campus and trying to get my band off the ground. I love to watch films, argue about politics and play soccer.

Lab Alumni  

Avanti Dey, currently pursuing M.Sc. at Washington University

Karyn Gabler, completed her B.A. at Queen's University

Gillian Harper, currently completing B.A. at Queen's University

Chelsea Heaven, currently pursuing M.A. at University of Indiana

Samia Hussein, currently pursing Law at Osgoode Hall Law School
Catherine Jee, pursuing Medicine at Dalhousie University

Nietzsche Lam, currently pursuing M.Sc. at Radboud University Nijmegen

Tina Poon, currently pursuing M.Sc. at John Molson School of Business

Laura Sheilds, completed her M.A. at University of Amsterdaam

Jordan Theriault, pursuing M.Sc. at Boston University

Angelita Wong, currently pursuing Ph.D at the University of Toronto



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