Principal Investigator
Jocelyn Dautel, PhD
I am a Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology, as well as a member of the Centre for Identity and Intergroup Relations, and a Fellow of The Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security, and Justice. I received my PhD in developmental psychology from the University of Chicago in 2013. Using empirical methods, our lab’s research explores how young people think and learn about the world around them and navigate their social relationships. We are particularly interested in how aspects of social context, such as one’s group status, culture, or surrounding societal division or integration influences developing social cognition.
Postdoctoral Researchers
Hannah J. Kramer, PhD
Hannah (pronouns: she/her) is a postdoctoral research fellow in the lab working with the Developing Belief Network to understand how children develop natural and supernatural beliefs around the world. Before coming to Queen’s, Hannah completed her BA in 2013 and PhD in 2021 at the University of California, Davis where she worked with Kristin Lagattuta in the Mind-Emotion Development Lab. Hannah is broadly interested in how people think about people with a focus on children’s and adults’ beliefs about time, mind, emotion, and social groups. To learn more about Hannah’s work, you can visit her website or just say hi (h.kramer@qub.ac.uk).
PhD Students
Risa Rylander
Risa (she/her) is a doctoral researcher working in partnership with local organisation Venture Kids Belfast, to better understand the nature of children’s playfulness and playful behaviours. With the support of ESRC NINE DTP funding, she began her PhD studentship in September 2021. Risa previously worked simultaneously as the Lab Manager for the Helping Kids! Lab from 2017-2021 and a Playworker and Manager at Venture Kids, Belfast from 2017-today.
Research Assistants
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Tara has just finished final year of her BSc in Psychology with Professional Placement at QUB. She has been working as a research assistant with the Kids in Context Lab since 2021 on the Truth project, Prosocial Risk Taking, and Conceptualisations of Autism. Across these projects, she has been involved in school recruitment, data collection, data coding and analysis, and manuscript preparation.
Postgraduate Research Assistant
Sierra has been working as a research assistant with Kids in Context lab since January 2022. She has worked on a few projects within the lab but has lately been focused on the Essentialism of Nationality study, collecting data and training new members of the lab on data collection. She graduated from QUB in December 2022 with a MSc in Psychological Science, and she has plans to study counselling psychology this Autumn back home in the US.
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Reece has just finished his third year of his BSc in Psychology here at Queen’s University Belfast. He started working in the lab in March of 2022 and has been an active member in the Truth project. His role involved recruitment and data collection methods including qualitative interviews and quantitative group data collection.
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Leah is working on her BSc in Psychology and joined the lab as part of the RESUS programme at the end of 2022 here at Queen’s University Belfast. She became an active member of research into prosocial risk-taking behaviour in children, where she was involved in recruitment, data collection in different schools, and transcription.
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Emma has just completed her final year of the BSc Psychology with Professional Placement course. She started working in the lab in December 2022 and has worked on the Prosocial Risk and Dehumanisation projects. Her role involved recruiting schools and testing primary school-aged children using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Now that she’s finished her degree, she hopes to use her experience from working in the lab to pursue a career in research outside of academia.
Undergraduate Research Assistant
John is a level 2 student helping out in the Kids in Context lab as a research assistant. His input into the lab started through the level 2 SRSS, helping with the Truth project. His main efforts have been in the collection, coding, and collation of the data. He’s also assisting with the Understanding Others’ Minds project in a similar role.
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Luke has finished his 2nd year of his BSc in Psychology and is currently completing a placement year within the School of Psychology here at Queen’s University Belfast. He began working as part of the Kids in Context lab group in October of 2022, and since then, he has taken part in the Art of Identity showcase event and contributed to the Understanding Others’ Minds project. In this project, his main roles consisted of participant recruitment and qualitative data collection.
Aoife Keating
Postgraduate Research Assistant
Aoife is a student of the MSc in Applied Developmental Psychology in Queen’s University. She has been working in the Kids in Context lab alongside Dr. Jocelyn Dautel and Risa Rylander as part of her research dissertation. She has been focusing on playfulness in school-aged children in Northern Ireland and the difference in observations of playfulness across observers. She hopes to progress to completing a Doctorate in Educational Psychology.
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Megan is a placement student at the School of Psychology, QUB. She started working with this lab as part of her placement in roles such as participant recruitment, interview transcription, and coding. She has recently been carrying out data collection at primary schools for the Understanding Other’s Minds project. She also helped with the Art of Identity Event at the Ulster Museum in November 2022.
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Caitlin has just completed her final year of her BSc in Psychology here at Queen’s University Belfast. She has been working as a research assistant for Kids in Context since March 2022 and has enjoyed working across a few projects within the lab with children of ages ranging from 5 – 18 years old. Recently, she has been leading data collection on the Communicating Truth project, visiting both youth groups and schools to run the project survey with teens.
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Sasha is a second-year Linguistics BS student at Northeastern University in Boston. She joined the lab in January 2023 through the Co-op program. Sasha began working on data collection for the Developing Belief Network project and now works on six of the projects within Kids in Context, which has allowed her to listen to the fascinating perspectives of children across Northern Ireland. Additionally, she helped assemble our website and draft the newsletter.
Postgraduate Research Assistant
Tara holds a BSc in Biological Sciences from Queen’s University Belfast and is also a Level 3 Children’s Care, Learning, and Development practitioner. She is currently working on her master’s in Psychological Science and has been working with the lab since March 2023, supervising the Understanding Others’ Minds project.
…and a special thanks to the other important members of our team:
Brendan Adreani
Charlotte Bradley
Megan Canning
Grace Cannon
Katie Carberry
Keelan Curran
Clearisse Del Rosario
Grace Duffy
Cecilia Haecker
Melissa McQuadeKathryn Treacy