Dr. Dana A. Hayward

Dana is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Alberta. She completed her PhD at McGill University (Montréal, QC), investigating the purported uniqueness of social attention, and her postdoctoral fellowship at Concordia University (Montréal, QC), researching the link between brain morphometry, neural activity, and behaviour.

Rafael Almeida, MSc student

Hi! I'm Rafael Almeida, a second-year MSc Student in Psychology. I'm from Brazil, but my academic journey crossed the borders of Brazil (undergraduate), Portugal (one-term exchange), and Canada (MITACS intern at Dalhousie University). I'm excited to be part of this amazing team and to hopefully contribute to the growth of our knowledge about attention. I am interested in investigating if different context valences affect our environmental exploration and its relation to gambling behaviours. To explore this question, I'm working on a visual search task as my MSc thesis, and I'm looking forward to sharing this with you all.

Khrystyna Topolnytska

Hello, my name is Khrysty Topolnytska. I already have my bachelor's degree in Psychology from a Ukrainian Catholic University. I'm excited to be working in the lab with Dana Hayward and Rafael Almeida. Our goal is to explore the topic of reward and attention. I've also found many sincere people here who have kindly shown me how to use EEG and eye-tracker. Unfortunately, my journey here will only be for 3 months, but I hope to gain valuable experience that I will use to develop the science of psychology in Ukraine. 

Claire Yiptong

My name is Claire and I'm a third year psychology student! My current study is looking into mind wandering and I'm interested in behavioural psychology. I enjoy listening to music and playing video games. I also speak French!

Mehak Gill

Hello! My name is Mehak, I am a third-year Honours Psychology student. This is my first year in the VASP lab. Currently, I am assisting in an EEG study as well as working on my own honours thesis project. I am looking forward to learning a lot through this lab. Within my first semester with this lab, I have already started to gain a lot of relevant experience! Outside of school, I enjoy dance and spending time with family/friends.

Jenna Lafond

Hello! I’m Jenna, I’m a third year BA Psychology honours student, and this is my first year working the in the VASP Lab. I will be running the BART task with Andrea. I’m interested in the area of psychology concerning social behaviour and how/why people differ from one another, so I’m very excited to work in the lab exploring how social attention affects a person. Other interests of mine include crochet, reading, and cuddling up with my cat!

Andrea Ybanez

Hi! My name is Andrea. I am a fifth year Psychology student. This is my first year in the VASP lab as an independent study student, and I am working with Jenna on the BART task. When I’m not in school, my hobbies include reading books, watching movies, playing video games, and drawing. A little fun fact about me is that I love learning new languages whenever I have the time! I am very excited to be a part of this lab, and I can’t wait to gain more research experience, as well as working with so many great people!

Megan Campbell

Hi! I’m Megan, a fifth year science Specialization in Psychology student. This is my first year in the VASP lab as a individual research student and I am working with Alice on the effect of social presence on spatial attention using EEG. I am excited to gain research experience and work with amazing people! Outside of university my hobbies include reading, houseplants, stained glass and camping.

Jane Pham

Hi! This is Jane, and I am in my third year as a Psychology major at the University of Alberta. This is my second year being a member of VASP Lab, and it is so exciting that I am now an individual research student on the Attention and Architecture project with Mae. I love exploring and learning new stuff, and especially grateful for having the chance to work and get to know amazing people in our lab.

Jasman Parmar

Nadia Skofenko

Hi! My name is Nadia. I am in my third year of BSc in Psychology with Specialization. This is my first year with the VASP Lab and I am excited to learn more about social cognition research techniques. Outside of research, I love spending time obsessing over music and alternative fashion.

Evlin Glyson

Hey! My name is Evlin and this will be my first year volunteering in the VASP lab. I am a 4th year BSc. Honors Psychology student (I am doing my honors thesis in the PEERS Lab) and have always had an interest in attention and social cognition. Primarily, I will be working on analyzing data for the eating disorders and social cognition project, which was conducted a while back by Dr. Dana Hayward and former students Nimrit and Devon. Otherwise I will also be a general helper for anyone in the lab as needed for their projects! I am excited to be growing my skills in cognitive neuroscience, all while collaborating with an amazing team here at the VASP lab.

Hannah Kraus

Hi there! My name is Hannah and I am in my third year of a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology. I am very happy to be volunteering in the VASP lab and learning more about psychological research. Currently, I am helping out on Anjelo and Maryam’s trust study and the experience has been great so far. I am excited to contribute to more projects in the future and continue expanding my knowledge and skills.

Madison Oslund

Mae Pacificar

Hello! My name is Mae, and I’m a recent graduate from the Honours BSc Psychology program under Dr. Hayward’s supervision. This is my third year in the VASP Lab, and I’m continuing to explore how built environments/spaces affect people’s cognition and behaviour in collaboration with Jane. When I’m not in the lab getting people to wear eye trackers, I like to pick up random hobbies, learn about random facts, go thrifting, and hang out with my dog, Cooper. I’m so excited to continue learning about research and being a part of a lab with amazing people!

Omnia Rajab

Hi everybody! My name is Omnia Rajab, and I am in my first year of the Doctor of Pharmacy program at UofA. I have been a volunteer at the VASP Lab for a couple years working on various projects, and am really excited to continue exploring and learning in the lab!

Patrick Harvey

Hi, I'm Patrick, a fourth-year Computer Engineering student, and I've been helping out as a programmer with the VASP lab for the last two years. Although my particular interests lie in the direction of digital security and robotics, working with VASP has given me the chance to get a glimpse into the world of psychology and work on a whole variety of projects in a field I'd never explored before, which has been incredibly interesting and a great opportunity to learn new things. Other than coding, I also love cooking and reading anything I can get my hands on.

Paul Bakshi

Hello there! My name is Paul I am a fourth-year BSc Computing Science with a minor in Statistics student, currently on my 8 month co-op term at ATCO. I just started working in the VASP lab at the start of Summer 2023 as a volunteer programmer working with Matt on his social attention study and have already gained alot of valuable experiences into the intersection of Computer Science and Psychology research to which I hope keeps on coming. Outside of academia, I love going to the gym, bouldering, and cooking new recipes.

Phebe Joshua

Priyal Mahajan

Hi! My name is Priyal Mahajan, and I am a third-year Bachelor of Education Secondary student. My aim is to go into Psychology master's and hope to become a registered psychologist later on. This is my first year joining the VASP lab as a volunteer, and I am currently working on the dyad (2-person card game) task. I appreciate the opportunity to work with highly talented people and I am excited to explore and learn more about human behaviours!

Sana Gulab

Hi! My name is Sana and I am in my fourth year, majoring in Psychology. This is my second year volunteering in the VASP lab and I am currently working with Madi on her event segmentation and ADHD project. I am very excited to continue volunteering with such an amazing group of people!

Sarah Janssens

Hi! My name is Sarah Janssens, and I am in my first year of the Nursing After Degree program. This is my third year volunteering in the VASP lab, and I have really enjoyed learning about psychology research and attention. It's been a great experience helping with different research projects, and I can't wait to continue learning more and getting to work with such incredible people! 

Selam Shiferaw

My name is Selam Shiferaw and this is my first year volunteering with the VASP lab. I am a third year Biological Sciences major and a Psychology minor. I will be helping with the dyad (2-person card game task). I am very excited to learn and see first hand how the research is done while gaining valuable experience.

Sharen Anna Manuel

Hi, I’m Sharen, a recent Bsc Psych graduate! In the VASP Lab, I’m researching the relationship between social anxiety and visual attention. This is my first year in the lab and I’m so excited to see what it brings! 

Zeinab Elhassan

Hi, my name is Zeinab. I am in my fifth year, pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Psychology with a minor in Business. I have been a volunteer RA in the VASP lab for about a year and a half. This year, I have primarily been working on a study with Alice, Meghan, and Mehak, which aims to explore the impact of social presence on attention, decision-making, and brain activity using EEG. Working in this lab has been a wonderful experience, and I am thrilled to continue being a part of the lab to further expand my research knowledge and skills. In my free time, I enjoy practicing yoga, baking, and cooking (and, of course, indulging in the delicious results), as well as spending quality time with my family and friends.

Yueyi Qiu

Hi! I am Yueyi Qiu, a third-year psychology student. I am a new volunteer in the VASP lab this semester. I am very excited to have a chance to work in this lab, and I believe I will enjoy this experience and gain a lot of new knowledge from research. During my free time, I like listening to music and watching movies.

Zhichun Qi

Hi! I am Zhichun, a fourth-year psychology student. I am a volunteer in the VASP lab, and this is my second year here. I am so excited to continue working in this lab and gaining knowledge about social cognition. Outside of academia, I love writing stories and cycling.