Emma Duerden, PhD is a Canada Research Chair in Neuroscience and Learning Disorders. She is the scientific lead of the Developing Brain research program. She is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education and a Core Member of the Brain & Mind Institute at the University of Western Ontario. She is also a member of the graduate program in Biomedical Engineering. She did her undergraduate degree in Psychology at McGill University. She completed her Master's degree in Neuroscience at the Montreal Neurological Institute. Dr. Duerden then trained at University of Montreal for her PhD in Neuroscience. Her postdoctoral fellowship was in developmental paediatrics at the Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto, ON). She then later worked as a Research Associate & Senior Research Associate at the Hospital for Sick Children in the Division of Neurology. ​

            POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHERS

Diane Seguin, PhD is currently a post doc in the Developing Brain and Cognitive Neurophysiology labs. Her graduate work at the University of Toronto focused on the effects of low-dose fetal alcohol on social behaviors using a pre-clinical model. Diane’s post doctoral work is building on her research interests in neurodevelopmental disorders. She is currently studying social communication and eye gaze behaviours in children with autism spectrum disorders using eye-tracking and neuroimaging methods.
​Emily Nichols, PhD is a postdoctoral fellow in the Developing Brain Lab, studying the developing brain using neuroimaging, starting from the fetus until early childhood. She is working to develop preprocessing pipelines to address some of the key difficulties in fetal neuroimaging, and to develop prenatal biomarkers of Intrauterine Growth Restriction. Her graduate work in neuroscience involved the study of bilingual language processing, and she also completed a post doc in computational neuroscience, using techniques in the field of machine learning.

            GRADUATE STUDENTS and undergraduate thesis students
Lingkai Tang, MSc completed his Bachelor of Engineering in Northwestern Polytechincal University, China, in 2015. He recently graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with a Masters of Science. His Masters thesis focused on automatic diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder with brain networks. Currently, he is a Ph.D. student in Biomedical Engineering and his project will focus on comparing MRI and fNIRS data for neuroimaging studies.

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Michaela Kent, MSc is a first year PhD student in the Neuroscience program, co-supervised by Emma Duerden and Jody Culham. Her interest in the developing brain has been a driving factor behind previous work. During her undergraduate at Glasgow Caledonian University, Michaela wrote a dissertation focussing on the neurodevelopment of children raised in orphanages. She then completed a Master's degree in Brain Science at the University of Glasgow, working primarily on an fMRI study exploring aspects of social cognition. Building on her neuroimaging background, Michaela now hopes to use fNIRS to study the developing brain in naturalistic settings.


​Jianan Wang, BSc finished his undergraduate degree in Computer Science at Western University. His undergraduate thesis project focused on testing automatic segmentation algorithm on MR images. He is currently a graduate student in Biomedical Engineering. His graduate thesis project will continue to focus on MR images.
Elizabeth Kuenzel, MA is a PhD student in School and Applied Child Psychology program at Western. She completed her Master of Arts in School and Applied Child Psychology at Western, and completed her undergraduate degree in Psychology at Concordia University of Edmonton. Elizabeth has worked with children with ASD doing ABA therapy, as well as with adults with disabilities as a residential counsellor. In her current research she is interested in how early adversity impacts cognitive outcomes and mental health in children with ASD.

​Sara Pac, BSc is a Master’s in Neuroscience candidate co-supervised with Dr. Ali Khan. She completed her undergraduate degree in Neuroscience at Western University with a thesis project investigating visual cues employed within a virtual reality environment. Her master’s thesis project will involve developing an atlas to better determine the anatomical structure of the amygdala and its nuclei using ultra-high field MRI.
Megan Mueller, MA, is a first year PhD student in School and Applied Child Psychology program at Western University. Megan completed her undergraduate degree at McMaster University, receiving a Bachelor of Science in Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour, with a specialization in Mental Health. She also completed Master’s degrees in both Developmental Psychology and Education at the University of Toronto, OISE and in the School and Applied Child Psychology at Western University. Megan is interested in expanding her research to explore whether brain development and injury in premature infants is a predictor of later social-emotional development and mental health. 
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​Alissa Papadopoulos, BSc is a first-year masters student in Counselling Psychology at Western. She completed her undergraduate degree at McMaster University, majoring in both Biology & Psychology. After graduating, Alissa worked at the Rotman Research Institute in Toronto researching cognitive behavioural rehabilitation programs for older adults. In her current research, Alissa is interested in how social adversity impacts brain structure and cognitive development in youth with ADHD.

Julia Montenegro, BA is a second year Masters student in School and Applied Child Psychology at Western University. Julia is a psychotherapist from Brazil, she completed her undergraduate degree at UNIFESP (Universidade Federal de São Paulo - Brazil), receiving a Bachelor in Psychology. Julia also followed a 2-year Residency Program which gave her a title of specialist in Mental Health and has been working with people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) for many years. She moved to Canada in 2018 and is now continuing her research with babies identifying risk factors for early life stress adversities to understand how some factors may impact early development and might result in ASD, thinking about developmental protective factors.


​Amira Hmidan, BA completed her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology (with a Concentration in Forensic Psychology) at St. Francis Xavier University in 2018. At present, Amira is a masters student in Counselling Psychology at Western. Her thesis in the Developing Brain Lab is examining the impact of parent stress, COVID-19 related factors, and screen time on children’s cognitive development. Amira’s long term goal is to complete a Ph.D. in counselling or clinical psychology. 



Susana Correa, BHS is a Master student in the Neuroscience program at Western. She completed her undergraduate degree in Health Sciences at Western University. Her master's thesis project is involved in looking at the associations between cannabis exposure prenatally and the development of functional connectivity in the third trimester of gestation. 




Abby Hennessy is in her fourth year of undergraduate psychology with a specialization in developmental cognitive neuroscience. She is currently doing her thesis on anxiety behaviours and amygdala volume patterns in children with ASD. She is interested in pursuing child psychology in graduate school.





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Homa Vahidi, BSc is a first year MSc student in the Neuroscience program, co-supervised by Emma Duerden and Yalda Mohsenzadeh. She is interested in uncovering how the brain develops to facilitate social and motor interactions with the outside world. During her undergraduate degree at Western University, Homa focused on using fNIRS to study hand-object interactions in adults. Building on her fNIRS background, Homa is now combining fNIRS and computational techniques to study neural processes in healthy  infants.


Matthew Wang is in his fourth year of an undergraduate BMSc degree with a specialization in medical health informatics. He is currently doing his thesis on the effects of online learning and stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on learning outcomes in children. He is interested pursuing a career in medicine. 






Samantha Bezanson is an undergraduate neuroscience student at Western University. She is currently doing her thesis on the associations between maternal distress, infant amygdala volume, and infant emotional regulation. She is interested in pursing graduate school after her undergrad. 

            RESEARCH ASSISTANTS

Ella Christiaans, BA graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from McGill University in 2020 and is currently completing an MEd in Educational Psychology at McGill University. She is currently helping to create, promote, and coordinate studies at the Developing Brain Lab, and is interested in pursing graduate studies in the future. 
Jiarui Yang, BSc just completed his undergraduate degree in Computer Science and Mathematics at Western University. In his last year of studies, he completed his thesis project “Development of an Eye-tracking Analysis Toolbox for Social-gaze Data” to help the Developing Brain Lab speed up the analysis and format process of eye-tracking data. Currently, he is working as a research volunteer providing updates of the analysis toolbox and other technical support, while pursuing his career as a Big Data Developer at RBC.

ALUMNI

​ANN clendenning, RESEARCH ASSISTANT

NOAH BRIERLY, RESEARCH ASSISTANT 

Rachel thorburn, RESEARCH ASSISTANT 

​​ Wenyu Huang, M.ed

 EMMA TRUFFYN, RESEARCH ASSISTANT