Hometown : Minnesota, United States

Makoto is a Bachelor of Arts student from the University of Minnesota who is visiting our lab for 7 months (Jan - July 2012) through the international Euroscholars program. "I've enjoyed watching children develop and apply new skills, so i wanted to come to the Focus on Emotions group to gain hands on experience in preparation for a future PhD position in developmental psychology."

Guida Veiga
 

Hometown : Lisbon, Portugal

Guida is doing her research on play and emotions in young children 3-5 years old, and visiting our lab February-March of 2012, to exchange ideas about her research and learn about new methodologies. She is also here to give a lecture in the Bachelor course 'Social and Emotional Development'  on the importance of free play in children's emotional development. Guida is an invited assistant professor at University of Evora. She is also  a PhD student in the Technical University of Lisbon, Faculty of Human Kinetics, co-supervised in Leiden by Professor Carolien Rieffe. Guida is doing her research on play and emotions in young children 3-5 years old. Using her training as a psychomotor therapist, Guida examines the effect of play therapy on children's emotional development. "I have always been amazed by the power of play in children's development. Although it seems such an obvious thing that children need to play, there is a lack of research on how play contributes to adaptive social and emotional functioning."  

Nikki Luke

Hometown : Brighton, England 

Nikki is a PhD student supervised by Professor Robin Banerjee at the University of Sussex. Her research examines the influence of parenting experiences (including abuse and neglect) on children’s peer relations and self-perceptions, to see whether this relationship is mediated by problems with empathy and social understanding. "I am very interested in the lab's approach to empathy as a multi-faceted construct, as I expect to find that particular parenting experiences are linked to specific profiles of empathic responding in our sample."

Katerina Kornilaki

Katerina Kornilaki is a tenured assistant professor of developmental psychology at the Department of Preschool Education, University of Crete, in Greece. She received a B.Ed in preschool education from the University of Crete and M.A and Ph.D in child development from the Institute of Education, University of London. She is interested in children’s positive emotions. During her visit at the Unit of Developmental and Educational
Psychology she will discuss and exchange ideas with members of the Focus on Emotions group in order to set up a study on gratitude in children.