Dr. Paula Barata
Paula Barata, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Guelph. Her research is explicitly feminist, has largely focused on violence against women, and has always had an applied bend. She has examined various issues related to intimate partner violence and has also worked on the evaluation of a sexual assault resistance education program (Enhanced Access, Acknowledge, Act), and she continues to work on the wider implementation of that program. Currently, she is working on a community engaged and arts-based project examining intimate partner violence survivors’ experiences with service provision during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Erica Johnston
Erica is a MA student in the Applied Social Psychology program at the University of Guelph. She completed her BAH, majoring in Psychology, at Queen’s University. Her honours thesis examined the role of knowledge in attitude-behaviour consistency. Erica is broadly interested in applied research that uses community-engaged methods to improve people’s health and well-being. Erica’s MA thesis, which is being supported by SSHRC, will explore how economic abuse manifests within post-secondary students’ intimate relationships. Erica is also involved with various projects within the lab, such as exploring service provision for domestic violence survivors over the Covid-19 pandemic and determining the efficacy of the online EAAA sexual assault prevention program. Outside of the lab, Erica has been working with the Community Engaged Scholarship Institute in their Community-Engaged Teaching and Learning and Research Shop departments.
Nicholas Hennessey
Nicholas is a current graduate student in the MA Applied Social Psychology program at The University of Guelph. Nicholas is passionate about helping queer youth develop and maintain their sexual health and wellbeing by uplifting queer voices and considering the lived experiences and unique complexities of queer relationships. Prior to their Master’s, Nicholas completed an Honours BA in Psychology at The University of New Brunswick. Nicholas’ Honours thesis involved the examination of LGBTQ+ young adults’ sexual, romantic & sexual identity milestone timings and their relation to sexual health-risk behaviours, sexually explicit media consumption, quality of parent-child sexual communication and sexual education history. Currently, Nicholas is researching the behaviours that lead up to, endure throughout, and conclude LGBTQ+ sexual consent navigation and how gender identity manifests in consent negotiation.
Laureen Owaga
Laureen Owaga is an international Ph.D. student from Kenya in the Applied Social Psychology and international development collaborative program. Laureen completed her MA in international development studies and certificate in Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, and a BA at Kenyatta University in Nairobi. Laureen’s research interests are in Gender-based violence as a barrier to gender equality. For her dissertation, Laureen is developing a project that will examine the feasibility of adopting a Canadian sexual assault reduction program for university and college-age women in Kenya. This program hopes to contribute to efforts in Kenya to curb the increasing rates of sexual assault among young women from acquaintances and inform sexual assault prevention research in Kenya. She is also a research assistant in the Department of Psychology and works collaboratively with the Community Engaged Scholarship Institute (CESI).
Daniely Sciarotta
Daniely is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Psychology, College of Social and Applied Human Sciences, at the University of Guelph. She received her Ph.D. in Child and Women’s Health Program from Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ), Fernandes Figueira Institute, Brazil, with a doctoral exchange program at the University of Toronto, Canada.
Daniely’s research area is focused on studies on Sexuality, Reproduction, Gender, and Health. Specific work areas include understanding the impacts of gender-based violence, stigma, poverty, housing insecurity, homelessness, using drugs, and other social factors that affect youth and women’s health. Her main research topics are IST/HIV, IPV, and SRHR.
In her early social work career, Daniely also worked with various community-based organizations to address health disparities among marginalized populations in Brazil.
Roxana Golmohammad
Roxana is a PhD student from Iran in applied Social Psychology and Sexualities, Genders, and Bodies Collaborative Specialization at the University of Guelph. Her research interests center around the sociocultural and political dimensions of migration, social justice, and gender-based violence. She aims to explore how the intersection of structural violence, gender-based violence, and socio-economic status in both the heritage country and settlement society impacts the mental health of immigrant women. Prior to her PhD, Roxana completed a master’s in counseling psychology at Allameh Tabataba’i University in Iran. Roxana worked as a registered counselor in Iran, providing mental health services to both adults and adolescents. She is the CEO of Nan va Qalam, an interdisciplinary magazine founded in 2019 in Iran. Exemplifying critical public pedagogy, the magazine explores social inequalities and structural violence, shedding light on various forms of oppression faced by marginalized groups like undocumented migrants, child laborers, and individuals living at the margins. She is also a research assistant in determining the efficacy of the online EAAA sexual assault prevention program in the Department of Psychology.
Michael Fair
Michael is a MA student in the Applied Social Psychology program studying the emergence of online misogyny groups. His research is focused on why these ideologies have developed, how specific content creators impact these groups, and what intervention strategies will limit the adverse effects of these communities. Before joining Guelph, Michael completed his BAH in Psychology and Criminology at the University of Windsor, where his work looked into the impact antisocial personality traits have on organisations. While in Windsor, Michael also gained experience in social services, organisational consulting, and community education.
Undergraduate Team
Pariya Tofigh
Pariya is an undergraduate student in her fourth year of her BAH psychology degree. She is currently completing her honours thesis in the Women’s Health and Wellbeing lab. Pariya’s research is a systematic literature review focused on the prevalence of intimate partner violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. The review will be making comparisons in prevalence based on geographical location and operationalization of IPV. She is also assisting Dr. Daniely Sciarotta and Dr. Paula Barata with a meta-analysis on the prevalence of intimate partner violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her general research interests are in issues related to gender, migration, and culture. She is planning to pursue post-graduate studies in social or community psychology.
Makeda Ralph
Makeda is a recent graduate from the University of Guelph, who attained her BAH degree in psychology. Makeda was appointed the opportunity to work on extensive research in collaboration with the University of Toronto in Dr. Laura Cirelli’s Tempo Lab as a Canada SROP student. In collaboration with Dr. Cirelli, she was able to conduct her own research project in which she sought to understand the emotional and perceptual effects of auditory and visual stimuli in children’s understanding of music and emotion and their implicit bias. She questioned if children were more apt to understand physical emotion through dance or music. Makeda has now been welcomed into Dr. Paula Barata’s Women’s Health and Wellbeing Lab as a 2024 SSHRC URSA scholarship recipient for the University of Guelph. Where she has been able to revive a previous honours student research proposal that was dear to her heart. Regarding black women’s experience’s with support after sexual violence and their willingness to either disclose or not disclose said experience . Makeda’s research interest fall in the realms of paediatric social psychology, family studies and women’s health and wellbeing. She is planning to pursue her post-graduate studies in social psychology.
Phoebe Tadrus
Phoebe is a dedicated fifth-year honours psychology and sociology student at the University of Guelph. Her honours thesis focuses on university students’ perspectives on sexual consent, reflecting her commitment to understanding and improving campus dynamics. Passionate about research, Phoebe is particularly interested in how mental health difficulties can impact daily life, aiming to contribute valuable insights to this critical area.
In addition to her academic pursuits, Phoebe serves as the Chairperson of the Psychology Society at the University, where she fosters a supportive and engaging environment for her peers. She also works as a Clinical Administrative Assistant at a Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation clinic, where she combines her organizational skills with her dedication to patient care.
