Lab Director
Katherine White
Katherine White, PhD joined the Psychology Department at the University of Waterloo in 2010, after completing her PhD in Cognitive Science at Brown University (Providence, Rhode Island, USA) and postdoctoral research in the department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester (Rochester, New York, USA). She studies the earliest stages of language development in infants and toddlers.
Graduate Students
Dana Bernier
Dana completed her Bachelor of Science (Bsc) Honours in Psychology and MA in Psychology from the University of Manitoba. Her MA project examined infants' ability to hear speech directed at them in a noisy, multi-speaker environments.
Currently, she is in the PhD program investigating toddlers' and adults' ability to understand children's speech.
Her other interests include the development of vowels in bilingually exposed infants, and examining noise levels across child care environments using LENA.
Ashley Avarino
Ashley completed her Bachelor of Science Honours (BSc) at McMaster University in Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour. She is currently in the PhD program at Waterloo. She is interested in how audio-visual speech impacts speech perception and learning in infants.
Shaneene Heupel
Shaneene completed her Bachelor of Arts (BA) at the University of Waterloo in Psychology and German. She is currently completing her Masters of Applied Science at the University of Waterloo. Her research interests include (1) how bilingualism can affect the development of language comprehension in infants and (2) how disfluencies in speech can affect language comprehension in toddlers.
Dominique Louer
Dominique completed her Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in French Studies and Interdisciplinary Linguistics at the University of Winnipeg, and her Master of Arts in French Studies at the University of Waterloo. Her M.A. thesis examined speech production of French-English bilinguals living in a language contact situation. Lab Coordinator
Annika Voss
Annika graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Honours Psychology and a minor in French. She completed her honours thesis in our partnered lab, the Developmental Learning Lab, where she looked at how infants' can integrate what they know about the physical properties of objects with their understanding of probability. She is working as the lab coordinator while she applies to graduate studies in developmental psychology.
Honours Thesis Students
Jingeli Ren
Jinglei is in her fourth year of Honours Psychology Science and a minor in Biology. She loves researching language and cognitive abilities. Her dream is to become a full-time researcher. In the future, she hopes to pursue graduate studies in Developmental Psychology or Cognitive Science.
Nicole Ho
Nicole is in her final year of a BSc in Honours Psychology with a minor in Biology. She is currently working on her honours thesis, investigating how children use speech disfluencies during word processing. In the future, she hopes to pursue graduate studies in Speech-Language Pathology.
Research Assistants
Rebecca Joy Dunk
Rebecca is completing her third year of a Bachelor of Arts in Honours Psychology with a Research Intensive Specialization. She has a history teaching ESL with children, which inspires her interest in language acquisition in infants. Assisting the LIDL research team is an essential part of her growth as an undergraduate student. She hopes to pursue graduate school in the stream of developmental psychology and eventually conduct research full-time.
Rachel Yee
Rachel is in her second-year psychology major with a minor in applied language studies and sexuality, marriage, and family studies. She hopes to pursue graduate studies in the future.
Rachel Braun
Rachel completed her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology at the University of Waterloo, followed by a graduate certificate in the Communicative Disorders Assistant program at Georgian College. She plans to pursue a career in Speech Language Pathology in the future.
Ashley Shilliday
Ashley is in her fourth year of Honours Science. She enjoys working with children and is interested in pursuing a career as a Speech-Language Pathologist.
Kate McLeod
Kate is in her final year of the honours science program with minors in biology and chemistry. After teaching english to children in Taiwan, she developed an interest for language acquisition and communication disorders. In the future, she hopes to either pursue speech language pathology or nursing.
Katie Nielsen
Katie completed a Bachelor of Arts and Science with minors in Psychology and Nutrition & Nutraceutical Sciences from the University of Guelph and is currently completing a postgraduate diploma in Applied Language Studies from the University of Waterloo. She hopes to pursue graduate studies in Speech-Language Pathology.
Collaborators (current and recent)
Kyle Chambers
Naomi Feldman
Celeste Kidd
James Morgan
Emily Myers
Mohinish Shukla
Melanie Soderstrom
Eiling Yee
Alumni
AJ Orena (Undergraduate Research Assistant/Honours Student/NSERC USRA Student)
Alex Rett (NSERC USRA Student/MASc Student)
Amy Liang (Undergraduate Research Assistant)
Amy Xu (Undergraduate Research Assistant)
Anielle Lim (Undergraduate Research Assistant)
Anita Abeyesekera (MASc student)
Anum Syeda (Undergraduate Research Assistant)
Ashley Blayney-Hoffer (Lab Coordinator/Research Assitant/Community Testing Coordinator)
Austin Penner (Undergraduate Research Assistant)
Ayah Taji (Undergraduate Research Assistant)
Bronte Smith (Honours Student)
Carry Derome (Honours Student)
Catherine Rocha (Undergraduate Research Assistant)
Celine Chui (Honours Student)
Chloe Whitham (Undergraduate Research Assistant)
Drew Weatherhead (PhD Student)
Elaina Bentz (Undergraduate Research Assistant)
Emily McIntosh (Lab Coordinator)
Erik Johnson (Honours Student)
Erin Kim (Lab Coordinator)
Giulia Vintila (Undergraduate Research Assistant)
Gloria Ip (Undergraduate Research Assistant/Honours Student)
Heather Bunnett-Jones (Undergraduate Research Assistant)
Janey Tso (Honours Student)
Jennifer Smith (Lab Manager/NSERC USRA Student)
Joel Le Forestier (Lab Coordinator)
Justin Leung (Undergraduate Research Assistant)
Kristen Thompson (Undergraduate Research Assistant)
Kas Woodland (NSERC USRA Student/Research Assistant)
Katelyn Rowe (Honours Student/NSERC USRA Student)
Katelyn Burden (Undergraduate Research Assistant)
Kavita Schaffer (Undergraduate Research Assistant)
Laura Brooks (Undergraduate Research Assistant)
Laura Rance (Undergraduate Research Assistant)
Madeline Crichton (NSERC USRA student)
Mary Krupicz (Honours Student)
Melissa Nikkel (Lab Coordinator)
Nasim Ahmadpour (Undergraduate Research Assistant/MASc student)
Olivia Daub (Honours Student/NSERC USRA Student)
Peiyao Zhang (Undergraduate Research Assistant)
Phoebe Liang (Honours Student)
Rachel Thorburn (Independent Study, Research Assistant)
Ragini Suresh (MASc Student/Lab Coordinator/Research Assistant)
Richard Holmes (Honours Student)
Riley Brennan (Undergraduate Research Assistant)
Robin Rosentrer (MASc student)
Sarah Doyle (Lab Coordinator)
Shanan Floto (Undergraduate Research Assistant)
Shaneene Heupel (Independent Study, Research Assistant)
Shaquille Sealy (Lab Coordinator)
Shirley He (NSERC USRA Student/Honours Student)
Sophie Yung (Undergraduate Research Assistant)
Taylor Columbus (Honours Student)
Taylor Riemersma (Honours Student/NSERC USRA Student)
Tim Woerle (Honours Student)
Vibhuti Jethava (Honours Student)
Yasaman Keshavarz (Undergraduate Research Assistant)
Zack Miller (Honours Student/Undergraduate Research Assistant)
