ELLA Team – 2019
Director
Dr. Annette M. E. Henderson
Annette joined the School of Psychology at the University of Auckland as a Lecturer in August 2009. She is now proud to be the Director of this thriving research group! [Read More]
Lab Coordinator
Dr. Angela Carr
Angela earned both her Bachelors and Masters degrees from the University of Auckland, School of Psychology before completing her PhD (in Criminology/Psychology) at Bond University in Australia. She has applied these skills across a range of roles in the public, not-for-profit, academic and private sectors in both New Zealand and Australia.
Angela helps with the day-to-day running of the Early Learning Lab and assists with recruitment and participant management.
Research Fellows
Dr. Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini
Siobhan’s research interests lie broadly in the field of developmental psychology with a particular focus on infancy and early childhood. She is especially interested in babies and infants early social development in the context of the parent-infant relationship.
Dr. Rachel Low
Rachel’s research looks at emotion regulation in the context of close personal relationships. Her current project examines family resilience and well-being and how conflict affects successful family functioning.
Dr. Jess Aitken
Jess has a background in education and psychology. Her research interests lay broadly in the area of social development, especially the way in which parenting and aspects of the child (such as temperament) work together to support young children’s growing ability to help and cooperate with others. She is currently working on the seventh phase of ELLa’s long-term cooperation study.
PhD Students
Caitlin McRae
Caitlin’s research aims to investigate family coparenting following conflict and how children develop resilience and emotional well-being in these contexts.
Nichole Breeland
Nichole’s research focuses on how parents influence children’s social development. Her PhD research examines parental personality factors and their effect on children’s prosociality.
Hedieh Tavazo
Hedieh’s research interests lie in parent-child interactions and how those from different cultural backgrounds engage with their children. In particular, she is studying the approaches New Zealand and Iranian parents use to teach their children during cooperative and non-cooperative tasks.
Kieron Mottley
Keiron is investigating self-recognition and self-regulation in the New Caledonian crow and human infants.
Masters Students
Solyneth Hak
Soly’s research focuses on children’s decision-making. She is currently pursuing a Masters of Psychology in Applied Behaviour Analysis, and her research looks at cues that signal either reward of lack thereof, and how those cues shape children’s choices.
Livia MacPhedran
Livia is looking at cooperative behaviour and temperament in children from a behavioural genetics viewpoint, researching the genetic basis of cooperation and temperament.
Brian Croxford
Brian’s research aims to investigate the relationship between temperament, affective empathy, and prosocial behavior in economic games. He is also examining the degree to which temperament and empathy may influence in-group bias in early life.
Honours and Postgraduate Diploma Students
Miffy Christensen
Miffy completed her Bachelor of Science in 2018 and is now undertaking honours in Psychology with ELLA. Miffy’s research focuses on cooperation in young children and factors that influence this, such as temperament and parents’ personalities.
Holly Sharplin
After volunteering in ELLA early in the year of 2019, Holly decided to pursue her Postgraduate Diploma in the lab. With a keen interest in the role of artificial intelligence in Psychology, her area of study involves observing parent-infant interactions to order to help create models of behaviour. Her project specifically examines parent’s responsiveness to child bids made during screen interactions.
Research Assistants
Chloe Moore
Chloe completed her Honours Degree in Psychology in 2014, and in 2015-2018 managed the Early Learning Lab while assisting in research both within ELLA and the wider School of Psychology. Currently, she is pursuing a Masters Degree in the Faculty of Education and Social Work and is helping to run our studies in cooperation and language on a part-time basis.
Kristina Wolsey
Kristina completed her Honours in Psychology in 2016 and is currently pursuing her Masters of Psychology in Applied Behavioural Analysis. She assists in the Early Learning Lab by helping to run our cooperation and second-language learning studies.
Sam Morriss
After completing her Honours thesis with ELLA in late 2018, Sam is also working on ELLA’s parent-infant interaction study helping to model infant and parent behaviour.
Beth Graham
Beth completed her Honours degree in 2018 and is now back with us helping to coordinate and run the ELLA cooperation studies.
Third Year Research Students
Moya McCarthy 2018
2018/2019 Summer Research Scholars
Meera Patel
ELLA Volunteers
Ameisha Nand
Caitlin Dodd
Christen Hinlo
Elise Mockett
Jayde Kelly
Justin Wong
Neil Lindsay
Olivia Brook
Rodolfo Villanueva
Sasha Cuthbert
Sophie Baguley