Does your frontal lobe really “finish” developing at the age of 25? 🤔 Your frontal lobe doesn’t magically stop developing! What changes after adolescence is the rate of development. Check out this fantastic video made by DSEC Lab members Léa Francoeur & Shira Klein to learn more!

Please share widely: Queen's University has the great pleasure of welcoming Dr. Ronald Dahl for a public lecture on Friday, October 2nd, 2026 from 2:30-4PM (KIN101). There will also be a public reception at the University Club following his talk. Don't miss it!

SFU social psych is hiring a tenure-track Asst Prof!! 🤩🎉 Our search prioritizes Black scholars. Come join a wonderful dept full of smart, kind people, and do psych research surrounded by mountains, ocean, a city, and natural beauty in BC. Please share widely & happy to answer qsts! flyn.im/dGFOwuT

We have a newly minted PhD in the house! Please join me in congratulating Dr. @danielnault.bsky.social on his successful doctoral defence today! 🎓

I’m coming back from #Flux2026 filled with ideas and inspiration! It was so great to reconnect with some of my favourite colleagues, meet new folks, and hear all about the cutting-edge research in developmental neuroscience.

@YouthImagineTheFuture is seeking reliable, hard-working people with eco-hearts & some experience to apply for a Festival Administrator & an Event Coordinator - 200 hours & 40 hours respectively. Short contracts, approx. Oct. 5-Dec. 5, 2026. Apply by Aug 27th.

The Development of Social and Emotional Communication Lab has had a fun & busy summer! Please allow me to toot my students' horn just a bit (clockwise, from top-left):

The @dseclab.bsky.social will be in Montreal this week for Development 2026! Riley Bonar, Emma Canning, & Katrina Mascherin will be presenting during Lightning Talks 6, on Weds @ 9am (Palais). Come by if you are interested in how teens attend to, interpret, & express emotions nonverbally!

I'll be sharing my lab's hot-off-the-presses work on neuromelanin, an in-vivo neural marker of dopamine function, and its relationship with emotion recognition in youth at #APS2026 in Barcelona! 🧠

I’ve got some good news to share… I was granted tenure at Queen’s! This one feels like a particularly big milestone. When I was 12, I decided I wanted to be a psychologist when I grew up; I was already in my fourth year of graduate school in clinical psychology when I realized...

I'd like to extend my gratitude to the stellar W26 team of trainees in the DSEC Lab! We have a fantastic lab culture, all thanks to these collaborative, creative, and hard-working people whom I have the good fortune to mentor. We accomplished a lot, learned a lot, and had a great time doing it! 🩵🧠

It’s been a week already, but the @dseclab.bsky.social is still buzzing from all the exciting science we got to learn about at the @affectscience.bsky.social conference! 🤩

The DSEC Lab is in Pittsburgh for #SAS2026! 🎉 We’re excited to present some of the latest findings from the lab and to learn from the incredible work being shared by others at the conference! Our team will be presenting on Friday and Saturday, so stay tuned for some conference highlights!

Wow - what a pre-conference! It was a thrill to co-host the first ever Developmental Affective Science pre-conference to the @affectscience.bsky.social conference this week. I was blown away by the group's energy, enthusiasm, and ideas! 🪴

I'm thrilled to welcome Dr. Johanna Jarcho as our first Seminar Series speaker of the term in the Centre for Neuroscience at Queen's. 🙏 Don't miss her talk, "Rethinking the role of memory in the development of social anxiety", tomorrow (Jan 21)!! neuroscience.queensu.ca/calendar/dr-...

As the Fall '25 semester ends, I wanted to shout out this wonderful team of students who work diligently to advance our understanding of adolescent development. I am fortunate to work alongside such an inspiring group of trainees. Looking forward to more science & fun next year! 🧠

@affectscience.bsky.social notices are out! 🎉 If you’re going to #SAS2026, consider attending its very first Developmental Affective Science pre-conference too! @eriknook.bsky.social and I hope to see you there. 🤞🏻 Spread the word!

Society for Affective Science@affectscience.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Explore how affective processes develop from early life through adolescence at the Developmental Affective Science preconference featuring invited talks, trainee flash talks, open discussion, & opportunities to spark new collabs across career stages! bit.ly/3Mx0778

Excited to share this: @eriknook.bsky.social and I are hosting a pre-conference on Developmental Affective Science before this year's @affectscience.bsky.social (March 12, 2026). If you're thinking of attending #SAS2026, consider joining us for the pre-con too! ✨

The Department of Psychology at Queen's University (Canada) is hiring! The position is for an established researcher (Associate/Full Professors) in social affective neuroscience. The full ad can be found here: www.queensu.ca/psychology/n... Please share widely! 🍁🧠

Congratulations to Riley Bonar for his successful Master’s thesis defence yesterday! Thank you to the evaluation committee for the engaging discussion and insightful questions. Riley, you have so much to be proud of—can’t wait for the next steps of your academic journey!

Happy trails to the dseclab.bsky.social 2025 summer staff! Victoria Cassel (queensuresearch.bsky.social USSRF), Polly Clayton (Matariki Network of Universities), Maria Fernanda Trigo Adami (MITACS), Olivia Merulla (staff), and Kyla Campbell (coordinator) moved our lab's work forward in major ways.

Major thanks to the @DSEC Lab Summer 2025 team for their hard-work & dedication! L to R, top: Tessa Patton, Navid Shabani Barzegar, Maria Fernanda Trigo Adami, Daniel Nault, Olivia Merulla, Catherine Shevelevich, Riley Bonar. Bottom: Victoria Cassel, Kyla Campbell, me, Rushmeet Singh, Polly Clayton.

The @dseclab.bsky.social sends out triannual newsletters sharing information about our ongoing studies, recent findings, & fun activities for youth. Download them at our website or subscribe to learn more about youth's social and emotional communication! www.michelemorningstar.com/our-lab-news...

DSEC Lab: Welcome

We will be sending out a new newsletter 3 times a year with new studies, recent findings and activities!

michelemorningstar.com

You might have heard me harp on about "encoder effects" in the last few years... and now, our review paper on the topic is finally out in Affective Science! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

I'm very fortunate to be the recipient of a SSHRC Insight Grant this year. Our project will investigate how adolescents' processing of social information varies by social context, and how this relates to psychosocial outcomes during the teenage years. www.queensu.ca/gazette/stor...

$11.5M to boost Queen’s research advancing understanding of people, societies, and the world | Queen's Gazette

The Insight and Partnerships programs support research excellence in the social sciences and humanities and the formation of collaborations that bring about its real-world impact.

queensu.ca

Big congrats to Peyton Nault for her first published paper! 🙌 Peyton found that youth with higher levels of hostile attribution bias (HAB) deemed friendly-sounding responses to peer conflict to be less effective ways of managing the situation.

Hostile Attribution Biases and Evaluation of Vocally Enacted Responses to Peer Provocation in Early Adolescents

Hostile Attribution Bias (HAB) is the tendency to perceive ambiguous social information as threatening. The social information processing (SIP) model provides a theoretical framework for determining ...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Lara Courtepatte, BA,PR of Tutor Teach about nonverbal communication & how it develops across childhood and adolescence. Thank you for sharing our conversation on the Parenting Ed-Ventures podcast! 🎤 Listen to the full episode: linkin.bio/parentingedv...

My Link in Bio Page

Check out my Link in Bio page to learn more.

linkin.bio

Queen's University has a special recruitment initiative for Ph.D. students whose admission was rescinded/who are reconsidering their acceptances to U.S. schools. If you are in this position and are interested in understanding how adolescents learn to navigate their social world, reach out to me! 🍁

I always enjoy the @psychscience.bsky.social conference, and this year’s #APS25DC was no exception! It was great to reconnect & share ideas with colleagues from around the world. Hope to do it again in Barcelona next year! @chronakigeorgia.bsky.social @kat-roto.bsky.social @danielnault.bsky.social

Today's the day: #APS25DC kicks off in Washington, DC! @danielnault.bsky.social and I are representing the @dseclab.bsky.social and presenting new findings from our recent studies. Come say hi - we'd love to chat!