Peter I. Collins, C.D., M.C.A., M.D., F.R.C.P(C)
Associate Professor, University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine
Psychiatrist, Criminal Behaviour Analysis Unit of the Ontario Provincial Police
Lieutenant-Commander, Royal Canadian Navy (Retired)
Joseph Arpaia, M. D. Psychiatry
Private Practice Clinician
Psychophysiology
University of Oregon Adjunct Faculty
https://ibernetics.com/
Dr. Arpaia, received his B.S in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology and his medical degree from the University of California, Irvine. His medical speciality is psychiatry and he has maintained a private practice for over 20 years in Eugene, OR. Dr. Arpaia’s clinical and research speciality is focused on helping people deal more effectively with stress and stress-related conditions. He has developed a systematic and efficient method for alleviating the effects of stress and training people to increase their resilience under pressure.
Craig Bennell
https://carleton.ca/fprc/people/craig-bennell/
Dr. Bennell studies three primary issues: (1) police use of force, (2) the reliability, validity, and usefulness of psychologically-based investigative techniques, and (3) evidence-based policing. The construction of the PRL was made possible through funds from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, the Ontario Research Fund, and Carleton University. Craig’s research has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Police Research Centre, Correctional Service Canada, and Carleton University.
Professor Bengt B. Arnetz MD, PhD, MPH, MScEpi
Department of Family Medicine, Chair
Michigan State University
Harri Gustasfberg, PhD
Dr. Gustasfberg has worked as a law enforcement officer since 1990. He is the co-creator of the iPREP program for police resiliency. His last post was chief inspector at the Police University College of Finland, 2014. He served as a member of the Finnish National Special Intervention Unit called KARHU for 22 years. During his years of service, Mr. Gustasfberg worked as a member of the SIU, then as an expert use of force instructor, operational commander, and K9 Instructor. Dr. Gustasfsberg now runs his own coaching and stress resiliency company.
Roxane Cohen Silver, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, University of California, Irvine
John M. Violanti, Ph.D.
Research Professor, Department of Social and Preventative Medicine,
University of Buffalo
GRADUATE STUDENTS
Jennifer F. Chan, MA, is a PhD student in the Health Adaptation Research on Trauma (HART) Lab at the University of Toronto, Mississauga, supervised by Dr. Judith P. Andersen. She completed her Honours Bachelor of Science at McMaster University in Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, and her Master of Arts in Psychology at the University of Toronto. Her interdisciplinary research interests include health, stress, neuroendocrinology, inflammation, and biofeedback.
Her research focus involves measures of psychosocial, physiological stress, and mental/physical health in first responders; previous projects have explored occupational stress, the prevalence of mental health symptoms (e.g., PTSD, depression, anxiety), and cortisol dysfunction in police. She has also completed research at SickKids’ Peter Gilgan Centre for Research and Learning, studying MEG resting state neuroconnectivity of Canadian Armed Forces personnel diagnosed with PTSD. Her current dissertation research investigates how healthcare professionals’ experienced stress and coping during the COVID-19 pandemic influences mental and immune health via salivary biomarkers of inflammation.
Jen is also involved in education and science communication throughout the greater Toronto area. She is a course instructor and teaching assistant at UofT, as well as a co-founder of UofT SPRINT (Summer Psychology Research Initiative)- a program dedicated to providing high school students from groups typically under-represented in STEM free and accessible hands-on experience in Psychology research. She has also collaborated with and is an invited speaker for groups including the Royal Canadian Institute for Science, the Story Collider, and the Canadian Multicultural Inventors Museum.
Check out Jennifer’s publication in Occupational Medicine: Chan, J. F., & Andersen, J. P. (2020). Influence of organizational stress on reported depressive symptoms among police. Occupational Medicine, 70(7), 496–502. doi: 10.1093/occmed/kqaa141
Monica Ghabrial, MA, is the Graduate Student Coordinator of the LGBTQ Sexual Health and Trauma Research Projects. She is also a Qualitative Data Expert.
Debanjan Borthakur, MSc, holds a Master’s degree in psychology, neuroscience and behaviour from McMaster University. His interests include exploring heart rate variability biofeedback for stress management and its underlying neural and physiological mechanisms. His expertise also includes psychophysiological as well as electrophysiological signal processing.
FORMER STUDENTS
Konstantinos Papazoglou, PH.D.
Christopher Zou, PH.D.
UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS
Amanda Dawson is a Psychology BSc student at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Her research interests involve investigating alternative forms of therapy to mitigate aggression in at-risk persons and violent offenders through the manipulation of oxytocin levels. She wishes to address her research on an intersectional scale towards diverse populations, BIPOC, LGBTQ+ persons within the prison industrial complex (PIC). Her goal is to promote rehabilitative over punitive treatment, mitigating the stigmatized association of criminality and mental health.
She will be working on the Horticultural Therapy Project (HTP) supervised by Dr. Judith Andersen. She will be exploring horticultural therapy as a peer support program among undergraduate students. Amanda will be facilitating this project alongside a team of collaborators to organize and monitor the success of an alternate form of therapy at the University of Toronto Mississauga.
Harasis Kaur (she/her) is a 4th year BSc candidate pursuing a double major in Health Sciences and Psychology and a minor in Biomedical communications. She will be working on the Horticulture Therapy Project (HTP) as a part of her independent research project (IRP). Her research interests include mental health, medical diagnostics and illustrations, developmental psychology and public health.
OTHER LAB MEMBERS
Sarah C. Scott (she/her) PhD student in the Health, Adaptation, Research on Trauma (HART) Laboratory. Her interdisciplinary research interests include stress physiology and psychology, trauma (specifically psychosocial), intersectional identity and resilience interventions. She has performed research in a variety of fields, including behavioural neuroscience, anatomical biology, decision neuroscience, clinical neuropsychology and currently stress psychology. Her current research involves investigating the roles of sex and gender in a novel heart rate variability biofeedback (HRVBF) intervention to improve post-traumatic stress injury symptoms in first responders. Sarah also developed a therapeutic horticulture program at the University of Toronto Mississauga to improve mental and physical wellness of undergraduate students, and is a master instructor for the international Performance, Resilience and Efficiency Program (iPREP), in which she has travelled internationally to train frontline officers on physiological techniques to improve autonomic system activation in high stress situations.