Alejandra Almarales

Alejandra Almarales joined the ReACT lab through the an undergraduate scholarship program in summer 2019 under the supervision of Dr. Rachel Langevin. Alejandra’s undergraduate research looked at affiliation and the way that people seek support from close others in stressful and traumatic situations.
Ruo Feng


Ruo completed her Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree in Psychology with a minor in Computer Science at McGill University. She joined the ReACT Lab in Summer 2020 through an undergraduate research scholarship. She is passionate about mental health advocacy and in the intersection between clinical, social and cultural psychology.
Naz Alpdogan

Naz took a gap year after getting her Bachelor of Arts in Honors Psychology at McGill University. She joined the ReACT Lab in Winter 2022 until Spring 2023 as a volunteer research assistant. She contributed to the dissemination activities.
Sarah Cabecinha-Alati


Sarah Cabecinha-Alati successfully defended her dissertation as part of the Counselling Psychology Program at McGill University. Her research focuses on the relationship between childhood adversity and parental emotion regulation. Her primary goal was to determine whether parents’ experiences of childhood adversity (e.g. abuse or neglect) impact their emotion regulation skills and subsequently, their parenting behaviours related to the process of emotion socialization.
Polly Cheng


Polly Cheng successfully defended her dissertation titled “The Relationship between Child Maltreatment Subtypes and Components of Emotional Competence in Emerging Adults” on February 2, 2023 as part of the Counselling Psychology Program at McGill University.
Research Aim: The aim of this dissertation was to understand the differential effects of childhood maltreatment subtypes on emotion regulation dimensions and the recognition of specific emotions. Due to the co-occurrence of child maltreatment subtypes, the effect of different maltreatment subtypes may be overestimated or misattributed when they are not considered together. Study 1 took into account the co-occurrence of child maltreatment subtypes to better understand the differential effects of child maltreatment subtypes on emotion regulation dimensions and the recognition of specific emotions. Study 2 aimed to empirically assess the relationship between emotion regulation and emotion recognition by examining the moderating role of emotion regulation in the relationship between child maltreatment and emotion recognition.
Key Results: Study 1 indicated that emotional maltreatment had a global effect on all the dimensions of emotion regulation difficulties and the recognition of negatively valanced emotions (anger, fear, and sadness) while controlling for other maltreatment subtypes. Study 2 revealed that child maltreatment was associated with poorer recognition of negatively valanced emotions, but only in the context of poor emotion regulation, however, exploratory analyses examining differential patterns revealed more nuanced relationships. Together, the results from both studies provide insight into the significant impact of emotional maltreatment on both emotion regulation and emotion recognition and how these patterns change when emotion regulation is examined as a moderator.
Aimée Wallace

Aimée completed her undergraduate studies in Psychology at McGill University with minors in Behavioural Science and Education. She also completed her Masters in Sexology (Research-Intervention Profil) at UQAM and was co-supervised by Dr. Langevin. Her research focuses on an analysis of risk and protective factors associated with the cyber-dating violence victimization of adolescent girls. She is now a Psychosocial Intervention Worker at Fondation Marie-Vincent, a multidisciplinary center for children and adolescents victims of sexual abuse and/or who are demonstrating problematic sexual behaviors.