
Chiaki Konishi
Ph.D., R.C.C.
Director
524 Education Building
☏ +1 (514) 398-4247
✉ chiaki.konishi@mcgill.ca
☆ Supervision Snapshots
Chiaki Konishi, Ph.D. completed her doctorate in Human Development, Learning and Culture within Department of Educational and Counselling Program, and Special Psychology at the University of British Columbia. She specializes in the area of Social-Emotional Leaning (SEL) and development, and applied statistics in educational and developmental psychology. Her research has concentrated on understanding the roles of connectedness on children’s and adolescents’ growth and well-being, with particular emphasis on stigmatized experiences of bullying and discrimination.
She has conducted various studies in the field of SEL and development, including longitudinal and cross-national studies of bullying and victimization, large-scale studies on school climate, school safety and social responsibility. In addition, her studies encompass marginalized populations of youth, including sexual and racial minorities, particularly in relation to their stigmatized experiences such as school victimization. Her investigations also include a meta-analytic review of school bullying associated with mental health, and an examination of the roles of anti-homophobia programs along with policies on sexual minority youth’s health. Most of Chiaki’s work has been conducted through collaborative partnerships with local schools and community agencies, aiming at optimizing social-emotional development of children and youth as well as learning environments/school climate. She has taught a unique graduate-level practicum course in SEL, the first of its kind in Canada initiated by Dr. Kimberly Schonert-Reichl and Dr. Shelley Hymel, providing opportunities for teacher candidates to develop a deep understanding of embedding SEL in educational settings.
Chiaki is also a registered clinical counsellor and has experience as a schoolteacher. Besides her research and teaching, Chiaki enjoys “slow” life, listening to music (especially classic), viewing films (particularly independent movies), cooking/eating, and playing with nature. If you are interested in relevant research topics or areas, please come to see her. She really enjoys talking to people in the education community!
Ph.D. Students

Brooke Macleod

Farhin Chowdhury

Jing Lin

Julia Tesolin

Shubhangi Bhardwaj

Yan Liu
M.A. Students

Diana Jiang
Recent Alumni

Luis Francisco Vargas-Madriz

Ziyu Wang
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Anne-Marie Parent
Alumna, EmailAnne-Marie Parent was an M.A. student in Educational Psychology (Human Development concentration). Anne-Marie’s Master’s project explored how parental autonomy support may promote resilience and social-emotional development of transgender and non-binary youth. Anne-Marie is involved in projects related to school safety and school climate, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Anne-Marie completed her B.A. in Psychology, with double minors in Behavioral Science and Education at McGill University.
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Chloé St. Onge-Shank was an M.A. student in counselling psychology at McGill University. She earned her B.A. (Honours) in the spring of 2017, graduating Summa Cum Laude from the University of Ottawa. Her undergraduate thesis focused on prosocial behaviours expressed among siblings and peers. For her M.A. thesis she explored bullying and peer victimization in Montreal high school students. She greatly enjoys developmental research, and thrives in environments where she can work with children and youth.
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Elaine Lyu
Alumna, EmailElaine Lyu completed her M.A. student in the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology with a concentration in Human Development at McGill University. She obtained her Bachelor of Social Sciences in Psychology at the University of Hong Kong in 2020. Elaine’s primary research interest is social-emotional development in the family and parenting contexts. Specifically, she is interested in school climate, bullying and victimization, socialization of values, and self-conscious emotions.
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Megan Knoll
Alumna, EmailMegan Knoll is a Ph.D. alumna in Counseling Psychology at McGill University. Megan’s research focuses on knowledge translation and Progress Monitoring (PM) measures in psychotherapy. To help close the practice-research gap, she examined how to best disseminate evidence-based practices, such as PM, in psychotherapy. Megan also works clinically in the domain of eating disorders and personality disorders.
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Xi (Lydia) Tao graduated from McGill University in 2018 with a Master’s degree in Educational Psychology. Currently, she is working as a full-time research assistant at the Lady Davis Research Institute of the Jewish General Hospital. She works in the domains of psychosocial and patient-centred research in an international rare disease context. She coordinates the day-to-day tasks of a clinical trial that examines the effectiveness of an online education program for scleroderma support group leaders.
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Melody Zhang
Alumna, EmailMelody Zhang completed her M.A. in the department of Educational and Counselling Psychology. She earned her B.A. in Psychology from McGill University, with a focus on behavioural neuroscience. Melody focused on the development of moral emotions, parent-child relationships, and their associations with bullying behaviour. Melody enjoys developmental research and has worked as a research assistant in various labs throughout her undergraduate degree. She was also a peer mentor for adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
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Miriam McBreen
Alumna, EmailMiriam McBreen completed her Ph.D. in the Human Development program at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, working under the supervision of Dr. Robert Savage and Dr. Chiaki Konishi. She has an MA in Cognitive Science from the University of Copenhagen. The focus of her research is on motivational and engagement factors for struggling readers, and designing and implementing motivationally-thoughtful reading curriculums.
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Ryan Persram
Alumnus, EmailRyan Persram was a Postdoctoral Researcher with the Social-Emotional Development Research Group at McGill University. He completed his Ph.D. in Psychology at Concordia University and holds an M.A. in Child Study from Concordia as well as a B.A in Honours Psychology from the University of Waterloo. Ryan’s research focuses on the effects of relationships, especially sibling relationships and friendships, on youth development and well-being. He also investigates how children develop an understanding of their social world through family conflicts.
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Satoshi Oda
Alumnus, EmailSatoshi Oda was a M.Ed. student in Educational Psychology at McGill University. He explored the relationships among self-efficacy, teacher support, and academic performance with the PISA data in his Master’s project. He earned his B.A. in Elementary Education in Japan in 2012, and he works as an elementary school teacher in Japan. His research interests involve classroom climate, student-teacher relationship, social-emotional development, self-perception, student-centered learning, and active learning.
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Sonia Kong
Alumna, EmailXiaoxue (Sonia) Kong was a MA student in the department of Educational and Counselling Psychology at McGill University, with a concentration in the Human Development program. She earned her B.A. of Consumer Behavior and Psychology in Western University. She was a research assistant in the Cognitive Development and Neuroimaging Laboratory for helping a bilingual project. Her research interests include child development, parenting behaviors, school bullying, bilingualism, and youth delinquency.
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Tracy Wong
Alumna, EmailTracy Wong completed her PhD in Human Development at McGill University. Previously, she researched parent-child dynamics and youth development in Hong Kong universities and taught at various school levels. Tracy’s research focuses on socio-emotional and cognitive development within the context of parenting, exploring topics such as attachment and prosocial behaviours. Additionally, she studies the influence of school climate on student outcomes. Tracy aims to inform parenting programs and school interventions through her research.
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Xuedi Liu
Alumna, EmailXuedi Liu graduated from the M.Ed. in General Educational Psychology. She completed her B.Sc. in Psychology in Beijing Normal University. Her research interests are parentification, family climate, academic performance and immigrant children. She has worked as a part-time teacher in a junior high school in Beijing, and as a volunteer teacher with a group of Tibetan children. She is interested in applying research to improve the lives of underprivileged children.
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Yasemin Erdogan
Alumna, EmailYasemin obtained her M.A from the Human Development program. Yasemin has a background working with children in various settings, internationally. Yasemin’s research interests are social-emotional development, bullying, school climate, and peer relationships. Her goal is to improve children and adolescents’ lives as individuals and within social ecosystems by bridging research, practice, and mobilizing networks of stakeholders.
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Yining Long
Alumna, EmailYining Long completed her M.A. in the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology with a concentration in Human Development at McGill University. She completed her B.A. in Psychology at the University of British Columbia in 2019. Yining is interested in research about classroom climate, children’s subjective wellbeing, and problems that children might encounter in their early ages of development in the social environment, such as internalizing/externalizing problems.
Research Trainee Alumni
Enoch Leung
Kana Yokoji
Kedi Zhao
Mohd Hafizan Hashim
Monika Sawka
Sarah Jeon
Sol Park
Soo Bin Cho
Takashi Oba