People

Principal Investigator

Jennifer Stellar

Jennifer is a social/personality psychologist at the University of Toronto. She received her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley and her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. She is interested in emotions, morality, prosociality, health, and well-being.

Curriculum Vitae

Department Website

Social Personality Research Group Website

Graduate Students

**The application is closed for new graduate students to start in the fall of 2026. Please check back for the 2027 cycle.**

Jaweria Qaiser

Jaweria is a Ph.D student in Social/Personality Psychology. Her primary research interests center on empathy. She has examined physiological synchrony during empathy, how empathy and compassion change in response to repeated exposure to suffering, and empathy for groups. Click here to learn more about Jaweria’s work!

Jesse Whiteman

Jesse is a PhD student in Social/Personality Psychology. His main interests involve the connections between emotions and health. Specifically, he is interested in exploring the impact of awe on immunological outcomes like pro-inflammatory cytokines.

Shernell Hines

Shernell is a Ph.D student in Social/Personality Psychology. Her research interests centre around the relationship between emotions and well-being with an interdisciplinary focus on how
this can improve Women’s Health. She is particularly interested in self-conscious and self-transcendent emotions, and their impact on self concept, well-being, and physiological processes.

Jean Rehani

Jean is a Ph.D student in Social/Personality Psychology. His main interests center around the psychology of the good life—in particular, the interconnected roles of existential reflection, values, emotion regulation, and habits in sustaining people’s unique ways of living well.

Affiliated Graduate Students

Éloïse Côté

Éloïse Côté is a PhD student in Social/Personality Psychology. Her primary research focuses on understanding the content and consequences of politicians’ moral rhetoric. Her work in the lab focuses on how observers evaluate ideologically motivated transgressive behaviour.

Alumni

Yachen Li (graduate student), Research Associate, Blueprint
Fred Duong (postdoctoral fellow), Senior Research Manager, More in Common
Nathan Leonhardt (affiliated graduate student), Assistant Professor, Brigham Young University
Rachel Forbes (graduate student), Senior Data Scientist, Shopify

Undergraduates

**HEAL is currently full, but we will be taking on new undergraduate research assistants to start in the summer and fall of 2026. If you are interested in applying, please submit an application through the university’s ROP or you can apply as a volunteer by emailing healUofT@gmail.com for an application.

Lab Manager
Begum Seri

Research Assistants