Our Team

Project co-directors

Joanne M. Chung

​is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, Mississauga. Her work focuses on topics at the intersection of culture, self, and emotion. In one research line, she has shown that developmental changes in personality and self-views are important for real world outcomes, especially during young adulthood. In another research line, she has examined people's experiences of self-evaluative and social emotions, both as they are experienced in the moment, and as part of one's personality. She is currently examining how people's emotional experiences are related to each other in everyday life, and her next steps are to explore how these experiences can contribute to personality development. Her research interests have required her to gain expertise in the conceptualization and measurement of emotions, and in the design, data collection, and data analytic aspects of both short-term and long-term longitudinal studies.

Odilia M. Laceulle

​is an assistant professor at Utrecht University. Her work is grounded in an interest in human development at the intersection of personality, social and developmental psycho(patho)logy and she seeks to understand the nature, development and consequences of person-environment transactions. Specifically, she focuses on how childhood and adolescent adversity affects personality development, how individuals may be exposed to (adverse) events based on their personality traits, and how person- and environment characteristics may mutually affect each other over time. Her findings show how the nature of bidirectional associations varies across traits, and across characteristics of the social environment. Additionally, she has explored how person-environment transactions can accelerate, slow down or deflect development, and how children may experience growth in the aftermath of adversity.

Researchers

Laurien Meijer

​is a junior researcher for the KARAKTER project at Utrecht University. Her research interests are mainly on child and adolescent development, specifically regarding psychopathology, trauma and resilience, risk behavior, political involvement and radicalization. She is also interested in statistical and methodological innovation, and always learning about new and exciting ways of carrying out social scientific research. Her research on patterns of trauma and resilience in children exposed to violence between their parents, showed that the majority of youths demonstrate an impressive amount of resilience in spite of the adversity they face. This inspired her to further explore how resilience can be fostered in youths exposed to different types of adverse events.

Renée Zonneveld

Is a junior researcher for the KARAKTER project at Tilburg University. ​She has previously worked on research regarding how a persons identity can influence someone experiences of prejudice and discrimination, specifically in the Dutch context. 
Additionally, during her work for a science blog she became more interested in the communication of scientific findings to others. For the reason that it is important for people to know more about what is currently happening in psychological research, but also to keep relating research findings to what they would mean for an individual. She finds it important that science is not conducted in a vacuum, but it being related to people and events outside of the scientific world.   

​Zeina Sawaf

Is a researcher based in the Netherlands. She has extensive experience working with refugees worldwide, including at the Canadian Embassy in Syria and in various organizations in Dubai. Zeina’s role in the Karakter project is to lend her expertise in intercultural communication and translation. Additionally, she is actively involved in data collection by guiding and supporting participants throughout the process. Zeina holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature; she looks forward to pursuing a master’s degree in Psychology to learn more about the mind and human behavior in the near future. 

Kinan Alajak 

is a researcher for the KARAKTER project at Utrecht University and member of its cultural advisory board. His research interests are mainly in wellbeing, sustainable labour market inclusion, and refugee integration. Currently, he is working on developing and executing new programs to improve the integration process newcomers go through in rebuilding their lives within the Dutch society. Besides Karakter, Kinan is a co-founder of Stichting English Academy for Newcomer and its current executive director. EAN is a nonprofit foundation that supports highly educated migrants in proceeding with their academic and professional career in the Netherlands. Kinan is currently a student at Utrecht University School of Economics, with a minor track in applied data sciences. He was nominated in 2019 for the Societal Impact Award.

​Neha Moopen

is a researcher at the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Tilburg University. Her research interests focus on elucidating the dynamics of mental health and well-being, particularly affective disorders. For this, she utilizes ecologically-valid and intensive data obtained through ambulatory assessment techniques - including the Experience Sampling Method and passive sensing through wearables or smartphone sensors. Moreover, she is interested in applying an idiographic or person-specific approach to build personalized models of mental health and behavior, which could potentially inform psychiatric diagnoses and treatment. ​Finally, she is interested in issues related to public and global mental health. This includes the development and quality of mental healthcare services worldwide, as well as its accessibility for vulnerable populations.  

Haza Rahim 

is a researcher and lecturer at Utrecht University. She studied Clinical Psychology in Utrecht. Her research had to do with EMDR as an effective intervention for anxiety patients with flashforwards. She has worked in a cross-cultural mental health clinic, specialized in depression and anxiety and in a hospital with Alzheimer patients. She also gives lectures and training to voluntary organizations who work with refugees about intercultural communication. Currently, she is coordinating a project with refugees, called ‘The Destination’. In this project 500 psychology students have to analyse a relevant societal question and eventually develop an intervention for refugees. 

Marilena Papadantonaki
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I am a master student at the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Utrecht University, in Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology program. My main research interests include the social-emotional functioning and the role of attachment styles in all aspects of emotional development. My former volunteer experience with children of drug addicts but also children who were victims of abuse gave me a greater insight in the relationship dynamics within the family system. Dealing with a group of highly vulnerable people, my interests became more centered in psycho trauma, psychopathology and abnormal development of youths.

Natalia Papakosta

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She is a Master’s student at Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology program in Utrecht University. She has been a research assistant in Developmental Psychology which is the main field of interest for her. She worked as a volunteer with abused children in Greece, where she came in contact with refugees and their adjustment difficulties. Her main interests are related to adolescents’ and young adults’ personality development, stress coping strategies and self esteem.

Leyla Ciftci 

​is a research master student at the faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences at Utrecht University. Her studies provide her with in-depth knowledge about children’s and adolescent’s social and emotional ab/normal development and adjustment. She is mainly interested in individual and social risk factors for psychopathology in youth. Her former volunteer experiences in youth centers for disadvantaged female immigrants, her involvement in teaching children and adolescents with poor and educationally alienated backgrounds, and her close collaboration with refugees have directed her attention to children and adolescents who are particularly vulnerable and at risk. 

Tara Tešanović

is a Social and Health Psychology research master’s student at Utrecht University, where she also graduated with a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology. She previously investigated cultural differences in people’s views on justice and the world, and how these might affect their need to engage in making sense of the loss in response to bereavement. Prior to her higher education, she volunteered at the Shelter for Urgent Care of Abused Children over the period of two years in her home country, Serbia. During this time, she was mainly focused on providing sheltered children with teaching and emotional support. Currently, her interests are mostly centred around personality risk factors for psychopathology and cultural differences in various aspects related to mental health.

​Huda Al Baker

I am a Master student at Utrecht University in Conflict Studies and Human Rights program. In this project, my participation comes as being a member of the cultural advisory board, that in addition to participating in field visits as moderator of data collection and translation. My main activities in the Netherland focused on the refugees to break the stereotypical image. I participated in many workshops and conferences in the Netherlands and Europe. Besides, I joined the Refugee Staff Training “Optimizing support for refugees in higher education” as a speaker and as a participant. I worked together with representatives from 20 European universities to improve the capacity of academia in assisting refugees and threatened academics on campus. I also help in design the program of the InclUUsion conference “The road to integration through higher education” which took place last June at Utrecht University as a host and speaker in story telling workshop.

Rima Dali

Rima Dali has a legal background, she is interested in laws and policies research, She has worked with the Syrian Center for Policy Research (SCPR) since January 2012, as a researcher in analyzing the legal system in Syria including the assessment of new laws and regulations and its socioeconomic impact. In 2013 she participated as part of the centre core team of SCPR who conducted the Population Statues Survey in 2013 and 2014, the survey covered demographic, social, economic, health, education, and governance sectors and implemented in the whole of Syria
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Rima also participated as a part of a research project on participation of Syrian refugees in Netherlands, this research commissioned by the Social Cultural Planning Agency (SCP), Utrecht University/Erasmus University of Rotterdam and aimed to know more about Syrian daily life to help policy makers in the Netherlands who work on participation to have a full understanding of how refugee’s daily preoccupations look like and how people experience the interactions with institutions and other support actors who help them with their participation, she was responsible for conducting interviews  with Syrian refugees and actively involved in focus groups phase to discuss the output of the research.

Duygu Taşfiliz

is a PhD student at Middle East Technical University (METU) and visiting researcher at Tilburg University. Her work focuses on social-emotional development across the lifespan with a primary aim of understanding the functions of emotions and close relationships. In one research line, she has shown that the interaction between early care types and temperamental characteristics influence the emotion understanding skills of children under social services. She also conducted an intervention project with mothers and children witnessed domestic violence living in women’s shelters. In another research line, she has explored the role of perceived partner responsiveness in well-being might be influenced by cultural context and by age during adulthood. She also investigated the role of perceived responsiveness in the association with emotional experiences and the post-traumatic growth of individuals who influenced by terrorist attacks. She is currently examining the psychological mechanisms by which close relationships influence emotional disclosure and psychological well-being. Additionally, she is interested in understanding factors influencing mate selection and relationship formation. 

Collaborators

Eva Alisic

​is Associate Director of the Jack Brockhoff Child Health and Wellbeing Program at the University of Melbourne, Australia. As Associate Professor, Child Trauma and Recovery, her background includes both psychology and human resource studies. She was a visiting scholar at the University Children’s Hospital Zurich, Switzerland. Dr Alisic’s team studies how children, young people, and families cope with traumatic experiences, and how professionals can support them. The consequences of fatal domestic violence, serious injury, war, and disaster are focal points in this research. Dr Alisic pursues innovative mixed-methods, including qualitative and quantitative research, with specific interest in translation of empirical findings to policy and practice.

Jennifer Stellar
​

​is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto. As a trained affective scientist, her research focuses on self-transcendent emotions, or positive prosocial emotions, including compassion, awe, and gratitude. She explores the powerful impact these emotions have on our relationships with others (e.g., social connection and empathy) as well as our own health (e.g., autonomic functioning and immunological responding) and well-being. For example, she has examined how momentary experiences of awe generate humility and how compassion is moderated by cultural and contextual variables such as social class. In addition, she specializes in the use of ecologically valid methods such as experience sampling and field studies in an effort to enhance the generalizability of her findings from the laboratory. She has gained expertise in advanced statistical methods, such as mixed models analysis, which are necessary to analyze longitudinal data across multiple time points.

Marieke Sleijpen

​is a psychologist and researcher at the Foundation Centrum ’45, a partner of the Arq Psychotrauma Expert Group, and a lecturer at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Her primary research interest is on the resilience of adolescent refugees and asylum seekers. In co-operation with the Nidos Foundation (an independent family guardian organisation in the Netherlands), she is currently working on a project that focuses on unaccompanied refugee minors. In this project, she integrates research and practice to improve support for these young people. Sleijpen has extensive experience working with children and adults from different backgrounds and cultures and she has gained expertise in analytic aspects of both qualitative and quantitative studies.