Lab News
March 2025
We’re pleased to announce that our PhD student, Brooke Hilton’s paper is now out in Child Development!
Dr. Sabbagh had a great time presenting a talk at the Development Interest Group at the University of Toronto!
February 2025
Congratulations to our Honours Thesis student, Rebecca Krichker, who has been accepted into an MSc in Human Resources and Organizations at the London School of Economics! She will be starting there in Fall 2025. We’re so excited to cheer her on for all her future endeavours!
January 2025
Happy New Year from the Early Experience Lab! We’re continuing to run 2 in-person studies at our lab and 1 online study! Please click on the “Projects” or “Participate” button to learn more about these studies and sign up to be contacted by us to receive more information and schedule a study appointment!
December 2024
Congratulations to our two Directed Lab students, Taylor Vilardo and Emma Gray, for completing their research projects! Emma’s project looked into how verbal affection impacts preschool-aged children’s movement patterns during standard experimental paradigms. Taylor’s project investigated the development of theory of mind in children aged 3-6, using EEG to uncover insights into how young kids understand that others have thoughts and beliefs different from their own.
November 2024
We are so excited to announced that our MSc student, Kayla de Volpi, has started data collection for her project called ‘Sandbox’ for 3 to 5-year-olds! Find it by clicking on our “Projects” or “Participate” buttons!
We are so proud of our PhD student Mark Payumo on finishing collection for his ‘Bird Box’ study! Thank you to all the families who helped make this research possible!
October 2024
Congratulations to our PhD student, Brooke Hilton, for her paper that’s now in press at Child Development! And congratulations on the birth of her son, Arthur!!
September 2024
We are pleased to welcome two new Honours Thesis students to the lab, Shannon Cassidy and Rebecca Krichker. We are so eager to see what projects they will be working on! Check out the ‘Our Team’ section of the website to learn more about their research!
We are also happy to welcome 5 new undergraduate research assistants to our lab this term: Lauren Rabbat, Zoe Florizone, Lauren Kelleher, Julia Di Cecca, and Bella Levitt! We can’t wait to see all the great work they put forth on our on-going and future projects!
August 2024
We are excited to welcome our new lab coordinator, Kyla Campbell, to the lab! She will be taking over the position for the new school year!
April 2024
We are so proud of our Honours Thesis students En Ze Pei and Kate Cullen for completing their research projects and presenting them at the 2024 Undergraduate Psychology Poster Day! They did such a great job, and their posters looked great! Congratulations and we can’t wait to see all the wonderful work they will continue to do!
We are saying goodbye to our lab coordinator of the last 2 years, Ariana Bujold! We wish her well in her future endeavours!
March 2024
We are wishing congratulations to our PhD student, Brooke Hilton, and our MSc Student, Julie Olsen, for presenting posters at the Cognitive Development Society 2024 annual conference! We are so proud of them!
February 2024
We are so pleased to report that we have finished the collection for our ROSie study! Thank you to all the families who made this research possible! And thank you to our collaborators at the University of Toronto’s Early Cognition Lab and to our lab coordinator, Ariana Bujold, for all their hard work in getting this collection done! We will update our Publications page when our findings are ready to be shared!
January 2024
Happy New Year! We are currently running 3 in-person studies at our lab and 1 online study! Please click on the “Projects” or “Participate” button to learn more about these studies and sign up to be contacted by us to receive more information and schedule a study appointment!
We are so happy to announce that our MSc Student, Kayla de Volpi, will be starting a new project soon, titled ‘Sandbox’! Please keep an eye on our Projects page for when this study is posted and open to enrolment!
November 2023
We are so excited to announce that we have 2 new projects beginning in the lab! Firstly, our MSc student Julie Olsen is starting a new project called ‘Seek & Sort’ for 5-year olds! Find it by clicking on our “Projects” or “Participate” buttons! Secondly, our PhD student Mark Payumo and one of our Honours Thesis students, En Ze Pei, are beginning a new project called ‘Bird Box’ for 3 to 5-year olds that will build from Mark’s ‘Pet Show’ study!
October 2023
We are very excited to have announce that our two Honours Thesis students have decided on their projects! En Ze Pei will be working with PhD student Mark Payumo as he continues his PhD dissertation of investigating Theory of Mind in pre-school age children while they wear a fun EEG net to show brain activity! Additionally, Kate Cullen will be continuing our lab’s interest of Theory of Mind in adults, by looking at how it is related to social anxiety symptoms and executive functioning.
September 2023
We are very excited to welcome a new Master’s student in the lab, Kayla de Volpi, as well as two new Honours Thesis students, En Ze Pei and Kate Cullen! We are so eager to see what projects they will be working on! Check out the ‘Our Team’ section of the website to learn more about their research!
We are happy to welcome 6 new undergraduate research assistants to our lab this term: Sherry Han, Taylor Vilardo, Teresa Spina, Grace Moffat, Liv Arbess, and Shannon Cassidy! We can’t wait to see all the great work they put forth on our on-going and future projects!
August 2023
We are happy to announce that our PhD student Brooke Hilton is beginning a new project called ‘Landmark’ for 3-5.5 year olds! Find it by clicking on our “Projects” or “Participate” buttons!
July 2023
We are so proud of our PhD student Caitlin Atkinson on finishing collection for her “Explore the Forest” study! Thank you to all the families who helped make this research possible!
April 2023
We are so proud of our Honours Thesis students Taylor Lefebvre and Briana O’Neil and our Directed Lab student En Ze Pei for completing their research projects and presenting them at our 2023 Undergraduate Psychology Poster Day! They all did such a great job, and their posters looked great! Congratulations and we can’t wait to see all the amazing work they will continue to do!
March 2023
We are so proud of our Directed Lab Student, En Ze Pei, for being accepted to present her project, working with our fantastic PhD student Caitlin Atkinson, alongside the Honours Thesis Students at our 2023 Psychology Poster Day!
February 2023
We are excited to be welcoming the Early Experience Labs first couple of computer science research assistants this term: Ikra Mortoza and Robbie Huang. We can’t wait to see how their coding and programming expertise will aid us in our research endeavours!
January 2023
We are happy to welcome two new undergraduate research assistants to our team this term: Kyla Campbell and Rebecca Krichker! We know they will be valuable members to our lab!
December 2022
We are super excited to be having one of our undergraduate research assistants, En Ze Pei, join us as a Directed Lab Student next term! We are looking forward to see her project come together!
October 2022
We are happy to welcome 4 new undergraduate research assistants to our lab this term: Yi Lan Pang, Phoebe Macleod Emmer, Megan Lam, and Maddie Fellows! We can’t wait to see all the amazing help they provide us in our on-going and future projects!
September 2022
We are very excited to welcome a new Master’s student in the lab, Julie Olsen, as well as two new Honours Thesis students, Taylor Lefebvre and Briana O’Neil! Check out the ‘Our Team’ section of the website to learn more about their research!
August 2022
We are so excited to welcome our new lab coordinator, Ariana Bujold, who will be taking over for Brie Olexa for the new school year!
Brie is off to the University of Manchester for the year, doing a MSc in Clinical Psychology. We wish her the best in her international adventure!
June 2022
We are excited to announce that we have a new incoming grad student this year, Julie Olsen! We are looking forward to having her on board and in Kingston in the fall!
April 2022
We are so proud of our undergraduate thesis students Katie Smith and Rachel Wax for completing their research projects and presenting them at 501 Poster Day yesterday. They both did such a great job, and their posters looked great! We are ecstatic for Katie as she won the People’s Choice Award for her poster in the Developmental area, voted by her peers! Congratulations both of you, we can’t wait to see what you do next!
March 2022
Congratulations to our directed lab student Jessica Frank for being awarded a NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award! We are excited to have her stick around with us over the summer term to continue her research and help out with new projects!
January 2022
Wishing a warm welcome to our new undergraduate research assistants for the Winter 2022 Term: Maya Morcos, Samara Osten and Nyré Viscardi! Glad to have some new faces to help out with coding on some ongoing projects.
December 2021
Congratulations to Brooke Hilton for successfully defending her Master’s thesis this past week! Brooke’s project focuses on examining how children change their beliefs when faced with new evidence. She has worked so hard through the COVID-19 pandemic and shifting to online data collection, and we are so proud! A huge achievement!
September 2021
We are back for the 2021 school year are excited to welcome some new lab members!
First, we said goodbye to our lab coordinator Owen Hicks who is off to Western to start his graduate training, and have welcomed in a new coordinator, Brie Olexa. We wish Owen the best of luck on his new adventure!
We also have three new honours thesis students joining us this year, Rachel Levin, Katie Smith & Rachel Wax. We are excited to learn more about their research projects for the year!
Keep an eye on on the ‘Our Teams tab’ to learn more about our new lab members!
June 2021
Congratulations to Brooke Hilton on receiving NSERC (CGS D) funding for her upcoming PhD in the lab!
April 2021
The lab had it’s first presentation at an online conference! Mark, Brooke and Caitlin gave a talk at a symposium at SRCD, about how we can track moment-to-moment changes in children’s beliefs as they adapt to a changing environment.
March 2021
Check out this news article featuring our PhD student Caitlin Atkinson, discussing her experiences with recruiting participants during COVID-19
We’re now on Instagram! Follow us at @earlyexperiencelab for:
Fun facts about child development
Discussion on different issues in child development research
Tips on how you can support your child’s development
Facts and information about our lab’s research
Check out this article at The Globe and Mail featuring Haykaz Mangardich, a recent graduate from our lab, titled ‘Beneficial Ways to Use Child Screen Time During the Pandemic and Beyond’
Build it.
February 2021
Congratulations to our lab coordinator Owen Hicks, who has accepted his offer to the Clinical Psychology graduate program at Western University, beginning Fall 2021!
January 2021
Welcome to new research assistants: Olivia Boyuk, Nicole Coman, Sarah Jones, Abby Oliver, Cali Shimkovitz, Rachel Wax, and Katherine White! Great to have you with us!!!
December 2020
Congratulations to Mark Payumo for successfully defending his Master’s thesis this past week! Mark’s project focused on the neurocognitive basis of belief-reasoning. He managed to run participants in the lab over the past several months while following COVID-19 health and safety rules. A huge achievement!
November 2020
Congratulations to Haykaz Mangardich, who successfully defended his doctoral dissertation in November! Haykaz’s dissertation project used EEG to look at how children’s brains responded to new words learned through a computer word learning game. Haykaz is continuing his research journey as a postdoctoral research fellow at UBC!
September 2020
Welcome to new research assistants: Paulina Babkin, Abby DeBoer, Jordyn Freidman, Isabelle Hau, Rachel Himmel, Kate Hunker, Jess Major, Robin Neish, Flo Nusselder, Erica Smith, Katie Smith, and Muhan Yang!
Welcome back to returning research assistants: Jazmin Eadie, Alicia Mora, Iris Weissman, and Sherry Zhang for the 2020-21 academic year!
August 2020
Welcome to new Lab Coordinator Owen Hicks! Owen received his BScH in Psychology from Queen’s in June 2020. We’re excited to have him join our team!