March 2024
The CASC Lab teamed up with Prof. Julie Bowker’s Child and Adolescent Relationships Laboratory at the University of Buffalo for this study examining friendship dissolution among early adolescents.
The CASC Lab was at the annual meeting of the Centre for Research in Human Development (CRDH)!
Katya Santucci and Ally Zikic both gave terrific talks on their research at CRDH 2024. Katya’s work focuses on the associations between young adults’ implicit beliefs about relationships and the stabilty and quality of their friendships. Ally examines how accurate recognition and expression of emotions contributes to functioning in friendships.
The CASC Lab was also well-represented at the CRDH 2024 poster session. Clockwise starting top left: Former undergraduate thesis student and current research coordinator Kimberly Drinkell, undergraduate thesis student Alicia D’Agata, undergraduate thesis student Hailey Knowles, doctoral student Anik Setti, doctoral student Nour Haddad, undergraduate student Laurence Jette.
November 2023
Melanie Dirks was excited to give a talk about the CASC Lab’s work on friendship dissolution to the developmental group at the University of Waterloo.
October 2023
Congratulations to CASC Lab doctoral student Alison Farrell-Reeves on a successful thesis defense! Dr. Farrell-Reeves is now at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario.
September 2023
The CASC Lab teamed up with the McGill Laboratory of Affiliation and Prosociality, led by Dr. Jennifer Bartz, on this paper looking at links between depressive symptoms and communication of emotional information. Congratulations to doctoral candidate Amy Gregory (supervised by Dr. Bartz), who led this work!
Welcome to Nour Haddad and Anik Setti, who joined the CASC Lab as doctoral students in clinical psychology this fall!
July 2023
Congrats to CASC lab doctoral student turned alum, Dr. Nicole Dryburgh, on a successful PhD defense! Dr. Dryburgh will be starting a post-doctoral fellowship with Dr. Kathy Georgiades at McMaster University’s Offord Centre for Child Studies this fall!
The soon to be Dr. Dryburgh about to present her research on victimization in the friendships of adolescents and young adults.
The CASC Lab is (almost) all here! From L to R: Katya Santucci, Allison MacNeil, Nicole Dryburgh, Melanie Dirks, Ally Zikic, Tom Khullar, John Cyfko, Erin Macdonald.
Congrats to CASC Lab post-doctoral fellow Dr. Ryan Persram who just started a faculty position at Toronto Metropolitan University!
Melanie Dirks and CASC Lab collaborator Bill Bukowski were both interviewed for this article about loneliness in the Montreal Gazette.
Congratulations to Erin Macdonald who just published this article focused on how understanding factors associated with the support young adults’ feel when interacting with a friend! CASC Lab alums Tom Khullar and Ella Vezina, CASC Lab doctoral student Katya Santucci, and CASC Lab collaborators John Lydon and Amanda Rose were co-authors.
June 2023
Melanie Dirks was interviewed for this article about how friendships help to keep us healthy, published in the APA Monitor.
May 2023
Melanie Dirks was honoured to give the keynote address — With a Little Help from My Friends: Embracing Change and Navigating Challenges to Improve Well-Being During Adolescence - at the launch of the Jacqueline Angus Healthy Minds and Well-being Programme at Montreal’s Trafalgar School for Girls.
April 2023
The CASC Lab was at the annual meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence in (unfortunately not so) sunny San Diego!
CASC Lab Doctoral Student Katya Santucci presents her work on apologizing in the friendships of young adults.
Queen’s Doctoral Student Daniel Nault presents his work on adolescents’ vocal responses to provocation by peers. This work was done in the lab of CASC Lab alum and collaborator, Michele Morningstar, in collaboration with Melanie Dirks.
CASC Lab Doctoral Students Ally Zikic and John Cyfko (pictured here with Katya Santucci) also presented their respective work on empathic accuracy in the friendships of young adults and daily associations between support from siblings and best friends and well-being during adolescence.
March 2023
Melanie Dirks was honoured to give a talk on the lab’s recent work on friendship in young adulthood in the Department of Psychology at Queen’s University as part of their Psychology Distinguished Lecture Series.
Congratulations to CASC Lab doctoral student turned alum Dr. Tom Khullar on a successful thesis defense!
February 2023
Excited to work with CASC Lab collaborator Holly Recchia’s RAD Lab on this paper looking at how children and teens talk with their moms about their experiences of being hurt by a peer.
December 2022
Congratulations to CASC Lab doctoral student Allison MacNeil who won a CIHR Health Systems Impact Fellowship!
Nicole Dryburgh published her work developing a measure of victimization in the friendships of young adults. CASC Lab collaborators Alexa Martin-Storey and Wendy Craig were co-authors.
August 2022
Congratulations to CASC Lab doctoral student Allison MacNeil who recently won a $15,000 scholarship from Maple Leaf Foods to support her research on the associations between food insecurity and psychopathology during adolescence! Allison is co-supervised by CASC Lab collaborator Frank Elgar.
Congratulations to Ryan Persram who won an FRQSC Post-doctoral fellowship to continue his work examining sibling relationships and well-being!
Melanie Dirks received a SSHRC Insight Grant to continue the CASC Lab’s work examining how adolescents’ daily experiences with siblings and friends are linked to their well-being. We are excited to continue our collaborations with Wendy Craig, Alexa Martin-Storey, Bill Bukowski, Holly Recchia, and Jessica Flake.
July 2022
Allison MacNeil published her work looking at daily associations between missed meals and affect in a sample of early adolescents! CASC Lab doctoral student Alison Farrell-Reeves and CASC Lab collaborator Frank Elgar were co-authors.
The CASC Lab was at International Society for Research on Aggression in Ottawa! Nicole Dryburgh, Ryan Persram, and CASC Lab collaborator Alexa Martin-Storey all gave great talks on our most recent work looking at the dark side of friendship.
June 2022
The CASC Lab is at Development 2022 in Calgary! Nicole Dryburgh, Allison MacNeil, and Ally Zikic all gave terrific flash talks describing their most recent work.
Allison MacNeil presenting her work on daily associations among parents’ report of food insecurity, parental negative affect, and adolescents’ report of parent-adolescent conflict.
Ally Zikic discussing her work examining whether having English as a first language was linked to young adults’ perceptions of support during an interaction with a same-gender friend.
It’s convocation! We at the CASC Lab love convocation. It’s a chance to celebrate the hard work and achievements of our students, colleagues, and friends, all while wearing our fancy robes. This year was extra special because we got to honour everybody who received their degree during the pandemic. Congratulations to all of our undergraduate students who graduated in 2020, 2021, and 2022, and to Dr. Miriam Kirmayer, who received her PhD in 2020.
CASC Lab-ers Katya Santucci (who received her BA in 2020 and is now a doctoral student in the CASC Lab) and Melanie Dirks at convocation 2022.
May 2022
The CASC Lab collaborated with Anna Weinberg’s TRAC Lab on a pair of papers looking at adolescents’ and adults’ neural responses to emotional faces and the associations between stress with peers and different neural responses among adolescents. TRAC Lab doctoral students Aislinn Sandre and Lidia Panier led this work.
April 2022
Congratulations to CASC Lab undergraduate students Bailey Bird, Finn Brennan-Kipp, Ariane Desmarais, Katerina Giannoumis, and Fiona Mant who all presented their projects at Undergraduate Research Day in the Department of Psychology at McGill.
CASC Lab-ers Melanie Dirks, Katerina Giannoumis, Katya Santucci, and Ally Zikic celebrating poster day, pandemic edition.
March 2022
Congratulations to CASC Lab grad student Erin Macdonald, who was awarded a doctoral fellowship by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada!
Congratulations to CASC Lab undergraduate student Bailey Bird who was awarded the Bertha Lapitsky Fellowship to continue their work with us this summer!
January 2022
CASC Lab grad student Nicole Dryburgh just published a meta-analysis documenting associations between interpersonal behavior and friendship quality in Child Development. CASC Lab undergrad alum Emma Ponath and CASC Lab collaborator Bill Bukowski were co-authors.
October 2021
CASC Lab alum Michele Morningstar (now assistant professor at Queen’s University) published her study examining recognition of vocal expressions of emotion at varying levels of intensity. Michele did this work when she was a doctoral student in the CASC Lab, and undergraduate students Jessica Burdo and Maria Leis are co-authors.
September 2021
CASC Lab grad students Katya Santucci and Tom Khullar published their research examining associations between young adults’ implicit beliefs about friendship and their reported use of dissolution and maintenance strategies in hypothetical challenges with friends. This work was based on Katya’s first undergraduate thesis.
Katya Santucci joins the lab as a doctoral student in clinical psychology!
August 2021
Melanie Dirks, CASC Lab alum Miriam Kirmayer, and CASC Lab collaborator Bill Bukowski were all interviewed for this article in the Montreal Gazette concerning how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected friendships.
July 2021
CASC Lab grad student Tom Khullar and CASC Lab alum Miriam Kirmayer published their work examining when and why young adults might choose to end or downgrade a friendship.
April 2021
CASC Lab alum Miriam Kirmayer and CASC Lab grad student Tom Khullar published a series of five studies focused on developing a situation-based measure of young adults’ competence in challenging friendship situations.
February 2021
Congratulations to CASC Lab grad student Alison Farrell-Reeves and CASC Lab collaborator Aislinn Sandre on their successful APPIC matches! Alison will be completing her residency at Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa, Ontario and Aislinn will be at St. Joseph’s in Hamilton, Ontario.