Graduate Students
Julia Vernon, M.A.
Doctoral Student
Julia earned her BA in Psychology and International Development Studies at McGill University in 2013. After graduation, she worked at the HIV Prevention Lab in the Department of Psychology at Ryerson University, where she coordinated multiple research studies, including clinical trials evaluating individual and group-based motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioural therapy treatment protocols. Julia joined the Adolescent Health Lab in September 2018 as an MA student in the Clinical Psychology program. Her thesis explored the ways in which parent emotion regulation and mindful parenting relate to youth internalizing and externalizing symptoms directly and indirectly through youth-parent attachment security.
Julia’s current research is funded by a Doctoral Research Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Her dissertation investigates how changes in parent emotion regulation and mindful parenting over the course of Connect relate to changes in youth-parent attachment security and mental health symptoms. She is also conducting a systematic review of interventions that target parent emotion regulation.
Sherene Balanji, B.A. (Hons)
Master’s Student
Sherene earned her BA in Psychology at Simon Fraser University in 2020 and began her MA in Clinical Child Psychology in 2021. She has longstanding interest in adolescent mental health which began as a focused interest on disordered eating but has since expanded to reflect comorbidity and the importance of transdiagnostic protective factors like secure attachment and emotion regulation. Sherene’s MA thesis will be employing a network analysis to model the relationship between symptoms of anxiety, depression, attachment, and emotion regulation to better understand how comorbidity emerges in teens.
Laura Daari, M.A.
Doctoral Student
Laura Daari is a doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology program at Simon Fraser University. Her research investigates how parental cognitive and emotional processes contribute to youth emotion regulation and mental health outcomes. She is particularly interested in developing and informing trauma-informed, evidence-based approaches that strengthen parent–child relationships and improve long-term developmental trajectories. She has contributed to multiple peer-reviewed publications and is the recipient of funding at the master and doctoral level through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). In addition to her research, she is involved in clinical therapy and assessment, teaching, mentorship, community leadership and is a mother to two sweet and curious little boys.
Jesse Scott, B.A. (Hons)
Master’s Student
Jesse joined the Adolescent Health Lab and Clinical Psychology program at Simon Fraser University in September 2023. She earned her BA from the University of Windsor, where she served as a project manager and research assistant across multiple labs and with community partners at a hospital, youth diversion program, and children’s centre. Her interests are largely informed by her experiences working alongside children, adolescents, and their families in clinical settings. She is interested in early adversity, attachment insecurity, emotional and social information processing, the co-occurrence of externalizing and internalizing symptoms, resilience, and mechanisms of therapeutic change. Jesse is passionate about trauma- and attachment-informed models and is eager to analyze Connect program data for her MA thesis. She may be contacted at scott_jesse@sfu.ca.
Samuel Matthew, B.Sc.
Master’s Student
Samuel Matthew is a doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology (Forensic Track) program at Simon Fraser University and a researcher in the Adolescent Health Lab. He completed his Bachelor of Science in Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behaviour at McMaster University in 2021, and earned his Master of Arts in Clinical Forensic Psychology in 2024 under the supervision of Dr. Jodi Viljoen.
Before joining the Adolescent Health Lab in 2025, Samuel developed a strong foundation in research and clinical practice, with a particular focus on adolescent wellbeing. His interests center on the individual and contextual factors that shape adolescents’ engagement in both risky and prosocial behaviour. Samuel’s doctoral research will explore how callous-unemotional traits and histories of adverse childhood experiences relate to changes in youth-parent attachment security and mental health symptoms among adolescents participating in the Connect Program.
Jihanne Dumo, B.Sc. (Hons)
Master’s Student
Jihanne began her MA in the Clinical Psychology program (Child track) in 2024. She earned her Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Psychology from the University of Northern British Columbia. Through coordinating community-based research on physical health factors among children and youth in rural areas and engaging with families in a clinical context at a local practice in northern BC, she strengthened her interest in understanding and supporting mental health trajectories across development. Jihanne initially joined the Adolescent Health Lab as a research assistant, working on translating materials from the Connect Attachment program into Filipino/Tagalog. Her research interests include attachment and emotion regulation/dysregulation, as well as the adaptation and implementation of the Connect program across diverse populations.
Email: jihanne_dumo@sfu.ca
Grad Student Alumni
Carlos Sierra, Ph.D.
Doctoral Student
DISSERTATION: Maternal and paternal depressive symptoms and parent-child attachment: Examination of change after participation in an attachment-based program
Rajan Hayre, M.A.
Graduate Student
THESIS: School Connectedness & Attachment: Predicted and Moderated Relationships with Substance Use, Depression, and Suicidality Among Teens At-Risk
Antonia Dangaltcheva, Ph.D.
Doctoral Student
DISSERTATION: Development of an Attachment Based Program for Parents of Teens with Gender Dysphoria
Lin Bao, Ph.D.
Doctoral Student
DISSERTATION: eConnect: Interactive Online Delivery of an Attachment-Based Group Intervention