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.
Laurissa Wilson, M.A.
Doctoral Student
Laurissa Wilson is a PhD student in the Clinical Psychology program at Simon Fraser University. She has a background in both clinical practice and psychological research. In her clinician practice, she works with adolescents and young adults facing a range of mental health concerns, including anxiety, depression, and emotion regulation challenges. She is especially passionate about working with neurodivergent clients, including autistic individuals and those with ADHD.
As a member of the SFU Adolescent Health Lab, Laurissa’s graduate research focuses on emotion regulation, attachment, and the experiences of neurodiverse individuals and their families. Her current research aims to better understand how attachment-based intervention may influence parent experiences in families with autistic adolescents.
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.
Sherene Balanji, M.A.
Doctoral Student
Sherene earned her MA in Clinical Child Psychology at SFU in 2023. Her longstanding interest in adolescent mental health began with a focus on disordered eating and has since expanded to encompass transdiagnostic processes that shape youth wellbeing. Her dissertation examines mechanisms of change in the Connect program, a 10-week attachment-based group intervention for caregivers of adolescents. Using cross-lagged panel longitudinal network analysis, her work models how attachment security, affect regulation, and internalizing and externalizing symptoms interact over time to reveal the pathways through which Connect fosters therapeutic change. Sherene’s research reflects her broader interest in attachment, emotion regulation, and scalable interventions that target core vulnerabilities underlying adolescent psychopathology.
Jesse Scott, M.A.
Doctoral Student
Jesse is a PhD student in the Clinical Psychology program at Simon Fraser University. She enjoys conducting diagnostic assessments and providing evidence-based therapy to clients across the lifespan. Her research interests are largely informed by her experiences working alongside children, adolescents, and their families in clinical settings. She is inspired by the power of connection and relational frameworks. Her primary areas of study include attachment, emotional and social information processing, resilience, and mechanisms of therapeutic change. Jesse’s dissertation, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), will explore changes in parent and child stress appraisals and responses over the course of the Connect program. She may be contacted at scott_jesse@sfu.ca.
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
Samuel Matthew, M.A.
Doctoral 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.
Hanna Erceg, B.A. (Hons)
Master’s Student
Hanna is a master’s student in the Clinical Psychology program at Simon Fraser University. She joined the Adolescent Health Lab in 2025 because of her interest in family dynamics, attachment relationships, and adolescent mental health. She is interested in conducting research that informs the development of evidence-based interventions for at-risk youth and their families, with a particular focus on caregiver and child emotion regulation, emotion socialization processes, and downstream risk-taking behaviours.
Email: hanna_erceg_2@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