Developmental Neuropsychology Lab

Karen Waldie

DEN Lab Director, Professor

Karen graduated from the University of Victoria (Canada). She completed a Masters and PhD in neuropsychology at the University of Calgary in 1998. Following graduate school, she became a research fellow with the Dunedin Study. In 2001 she joined the School of Psychology at the University of Auckland where she now teaches developmental psychology, quantitative research and directs the Developmental Neuropsychology (DEN) Lab. During her time at Auckland, Karen has served as a Named Investigator in the "Growing Up in New Zealand" and the Auckland Birthweight Collaborative Study, is a Principal Investigator for the Centre for Brain Research and works closely with the Matai Medical Research Institute in Gisborne.

Paula Araya-Herrera

Doctoral Candidate, Psychology

Paula joined the lab as a PhD student in 2023. She graduated from the University of Valparaiso (Chile) in 2011 with a bachelor's in physiotherapy. Then she completed her master's in government and public management. She integrates longitudinal data analysis (Growing Up in New Zealand) with NZ therapists' perspectives to study the impact of gross motor development on cognitive, social, communication, and behavioural outcomes in autistic children. Supervised by Dr. Katrina Phillips, Dr. Lisa Underwood, and Prof. Karen Waldie, Paula also teaches in universities for 15 years now. She is an internationally certified aquatic therapist.

Qiongxi (Sylvia) Zhang

Doctoral Candidate, Psychology

Sylvia joined the DEN Lab after achieving First-Class Honours in Psychology from the University of Auckland. She initially earned a BSc in Psychology and Mathematics from Otago University, followed by an MSc in Actuarial Science from Bayes Business School in London. After a career as a financial analyst and director in portfolio investment, Sylvia returned to academia to focus on developmental psychology. Her PhD research investigates peer aggression and bullying among school-aged children, aiming to identify factors and interventions to create safer, supportive educational environments across Aotearoa New Zealand.

Claire Reid

Doctoral Candidate, Psychology

Claire joined the DEN Lab in 2024 after earning First-Class Honours in Psychology. With a BCom and BSc, she spent 15 years in corporate and start-up roles across New Zealand, Melbourne, and London. After having her youngest child, she shifted focus to child development, driven by concerns about screen time. Her Honours research linked increased screen time to lower language scores in children, emphasizing parental engagement. For her PhD, she expands this to 12-year-olds and explores ADHD-related screen use, executive functioning impacts, and practical strategies to help parents foster healthier screen habits.

Francesca Pigatto

Doctoral Candidate, Psychology

Francesca completed the MBChB from the University of Trieste (Italy) in 1996, followed by specialist vocational training in Clinical Genetics at the University of Genoa (Italy) in 2003. As a Clinical Geneticist, she worked in Milan (Italy), Townsville (QLD), and Auckland until 2013. In 2019, she joined the UoA to pursue a research master's in Public Health and is currently completing a PhD focused on adolescent mental health. Her research explored risk factors for depression and anxiety symptoms in adolescents enrolled in the Growing Up in New Zealand (GUiNZ) longitudinal study.

Stephanie D’Souza

Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences and Deputy Director of the COMPASS Research Centre

Dr Stephanie D’Souza completed her PhD in Psychology at the University of Auckland, supervised by Professors Karen Waldie and Susan Morton. Her doctoral research used data from the Growing Up in New Zealand study to examine behavioural development in children, focusing on the role of maternal wellbeing. Stephanie is now a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences and Deputy Director of the COMPASS Research Centre. Her research uses large-scale longitudinal and administrative data to investigate mental health, neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative conditions, and broader health and social outcomes across the life course to inform equitable, evidence-based public policy.

Yuxuan (Wade) Zheng

Lecturer at Beijing International Studies University

Originally from China mainland, Yuxuan (Wade) Zheng was a lab member between 2018 and 2022, and obtained his PhD degree in Psychology in 2022 under the supervision of Prof. Karen Waldie and Assoc. Prof. Minako O’Hagan (co-supervisor). His main research interest lies in the oscillatory mechanisms underlying bilingual sentence processing. He is now a lecturer at Beijing International Studies University, where he uses EEG and behavioral methods to investigate language-related (neuro)cognitive processes.

Haeme Park

Researcher at Neuroscience Research Australia

Haeme Park completed her PhD at the University of Auckland in 2015 where she examined the effects of schizotypal personality on healthy young adults using both MRI and EEG methods. She then moved to Belgium to pursue a three-year postdoctoral scholarship at the Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, in which she focused on the neural overlap between motivational and emotional processes. Since 2019, she has been working at Neuroscience Research Australia in Sydney, examining the question of what makes some people more resilient to adversity compared to others. In particular, she is interested in how variability in mental wellbeing and resilience may be observed in the brain across the lifespan, the psychosocial factors that contribute to such variability (e.g., personality traits, early life experiences), as well as genetic vs. environmental contributions (via examining twin populations).

Denise Neumann

Research Fellow in the Culture & Identity Domain and Māori Theme of the Growing Up in New Zealand longitudinal study at Waipapa Taumata Rau – The University of Auckland

Denise is a Research Fellow in the Culture & Identity Domain and Māori Theme of the Growing Up in New Zealand study at the University of Auckland since 2019, focusing on psychosocial and cognitive development, culture & identity, psychometrics, and mental health. She earned her PhD in Psychology at the University of Auckland, researching cognitive development and psychometric properties in ethnically diverse samples. Previously, she completed her Doctor of Medical Sciences and served as a Research Fellow at Martin Luther University’s Institute for Rehabilitation Medicine. Denise also contributes to Whakaoratia te hinengaro, a Mātauranga Māori mental wellbeing project.