Deadline: October 3, 2022
The LaMarsh Centre Graduate Student Leadership Award is designed to provide opportunities for graduate students to receive mentorship from LaMarsh faculty and play a leadership role in promoting initiatives that enhance student engagement in research at LaMarsh. The Award is open to graduate student trainees of LaMarsh, and is meant to support their active engagement in LaMarsh initiatives. Leadership representatives are involved in planning, attending and coordinating LaMarsh activities such as: student engagement, website, workshops, speaker series, newsletter, executive meetings, fundraisers, events and the annual graduate student symposium.
A full description of the award and application are found below:
Student Leaders
2021 - 2022 Student Leaders
Annie Mills
Supervisor: Jonathan Weiss
Department: Psychology
Email: millsas@yorku.ca
My research focuses on the well-being and mental health of individuals with developmental disabilities. My master's thesis investigated associations between child autism characteristics, parent factors, and emotion regulation in youth with autism. My doctoral research will use photo-elicitation methods and qualitative interviewing to investigate what thriving means for those with developmental disabilities. Collaborating with those with developmental disabilities and their families in creating a conceptualization of thriving is an important step in learning how best to support the well-being of this group.
Bianca Bondi
Supervisor: Debra Pepler
Department: Psychology
Email: bbondi@yorku.ca
My graduate research is embedded at Mothercraft’s Breaking the Cycle, a relational early intervention program for substance-exposed children. For my master’s research, I established theoretically grounded cross-domain cumulative risk and protection measures for use with sibling groups exposed prenatally to substances. I also explored each child’s longitudinal neurodevelopmental profile. The emerging patterns highlighted the importance of a mixed-method, cumulative, and cross-domain consideration of risk and protection, as well as the impact of early intervention on neurodevelopment. I will continue investigating the impact of cumulative risk and protection, and early intervention, on neurodevelopment in substance-exposed infants and young children for my dissertation. Specifically, I will establish a developmental-relational assessment method to identify neurodevelopmental profiles within early relational contexts of cumulative risk and protection.
Megis Oskalns
Supervisor: Yvonne Bohr
Department: Psychology
Email: megisn@yorku.ca
My current research involves resilience, technology and mental health for Indigenous communities. More specially, I am currently involved with the ISPARX project that teaches CBT skills to Inuit Youth via a videogame-based intervention method. Forthcoming research is geared towards the impact of social media on Indigenous communities during COVID-19. Other areas of interest include the families and intergenerational trauma. I hope to add Indigenous perspective to mental health research and treatment programs.
Natan Levi
Supervisor: Jessica Fraser-Thomas
Department: Psychology
Email: natanac@yorku.ca
Natan (he/they) is in the final year of his MSc with Dr. Jessica Fraser-Thomas. In 2013, he graduated from Rotman Commerce at the University of Toronto with a specialization in management.
Prior to starting his studies at York University, he spent 5 years working with Jane/Finch Community Tennis Association, Ontario Tennis Association and Tennis Canada delivering and evaluating grassroots sport for development programs.
Natan came to Canada as refugee from Sarajevo, former Yugoslavia, which shape his anti-oppression perspectives. His research interests explore the intersections of sport for development, social justice, and governance.