Research Team
Lab Directors
- A/Professor Elise Kalokerinos
Co-director of Lab
She/her
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences
elise.kalokerinos@unimelb.edu.au
Elise Kalokerinos is a Senior Lecturer in the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences. She completed her PhD in social psychology at the University of Queensland, and a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship at KU Leuven in Belgium. Her research centres on emotion, motivation, and self-regulation.
- Professor Katie Greenaway
Co-director of Lab
She/her
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences
katharine.greenaway@unimelb.edu.au
Katie's research focuses on social functioning in three main domains: identity processes, emotion regulation, and human agency. At its heart, Katie's research aims to understand the formation and consequences of social connections between people.
- Professor Peter Koval
Co-director of Lab
He/him
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences
Dr Pete Koval is an Associate Professor in Psychology. His research interests lie at the intersection of social, personality, and clinical psychology with a focus on the dynamics of emotional processes in daily life, including how people experience and regulate their emotions in response to everyday events, and how these processes relate to well-being and psychological functioning.
Postdoctoral Research Fellows
- Dr Anh Tran
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
She/her
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences
Anh’s research focuses on the role of contextual factors in everyday emotion regulation, with a special interest in interpersonal processes. Anh completed her PhD in the FEEL Lab on interpersonal emotion regulation—how and why people socially regulate their own and others’ emotions in daily life.
- Dr Valentina Bianchi
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
She/her
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences
Valentina is a Senior Clinical Psychologist and a Research Fellow, recipient of a National Intelligence Postdoctoral Grant (NIPG). Her research focuses on secrecy processes, emotion regulation and affective dynamics in everyday life. She holds academic interests across clinical and social psychology,as well as in meta-science.
Lab Research Support
- Hepbyrne Davies

Lab Manager
She/her
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences
- Ella Wilson

Research Assistant
She/her
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne
- Imogen Smith

Research Assistant
She/her
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne
- Komal Grewal

Research Assistant (EMOTE)
She/her
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne
Postgraduate Students
- Aya Uchida

PhD Student
She/her
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences
aya.uchida@student.unimelb.edu.au
Aya's research is interested in how and why individuals and cultures differ in emotion regulation and the role of motivation in emotion regulation.
- Georgia Tsindos

Masters/PhD Student
She/her
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences
gtsindos@student.unimelb.edu.au
Georgia’s research focuses on the cognitive, affective, and behavioural mechanisms underlying eating disorders, with a particular focus on binge eating behaviour.
- Jasmin Bruna Stariolo

PhD Student
She/her
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences
jstariolo@student.unimelb.edu.au
Jasmin's research focuses on neurocognitive science and psychology, particularly in attention and perception processing, as well as affective science. Jasmin holds a degree in Biological Science and a master’s in Neurophysiological Behavior from the Federal University of Fluminense.
- Jessica Polhill

Masters Student
She/her
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences
jpolhill@student.unimelb.edu.au
Jess’ research focuses on the factors influencing the effectiveness of various emotion regulation strategies, with a current focus on how emotion regulation is impacted by psychopathology symptoms.
- Rachel Freeman-Robinson

PhD Student
She/her
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences
freemanr1@student.unimelb.edu.au Rachel is interested in how attention, acceptance, and effort influence emotion regulation. She is also a tutor in research methods and social psychology at the University of Melbourne.
- Noy Zeira

PhD Student
She/her
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences
Noy's research focuses on how emotion regulation and its effectiveness change as a function of different contexts in daily life, among both depressed and non-depressed individuals. Noy also holds a master's degree in clinical psychology.
- Runqiu Fei

PhD Student
He/him
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences
runqiu.fei@student.unimelb.edu.au
Runqiu’s research focuses on the quantitative modelling of daily emotion, exploring how emotional experiences evolve over time and vary across individuals.
- Sarah O'Brien

PhD Student
She/her
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences
Sarah's research is interested in interpersonal emotion regulation, particularly when and why social sharing is beneficial or detrimental to one's well-being.
- Sooyeon Kim

PhD Student
She/her
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences
sooyeon.kim@student.unimelb.edu.au
Sooyeon’s research examines why and how people from various cultures regulate their emotions differently, focusing on response modulation. She also holds a master’s degree in clinical psychology.
2025 Honours Students
- Harry Rule (He/Him)
- Mia Zelesco (She/Her)
- Chloe Smart (She/Her)
- Emily Reed (She/Her)
- Nissi Cai (She/Her)
- Claire Makepeace (She/Her)

Past Members
-
- Dante Martino (Lab manager)
- Arjun Pathy (Honours student)
- Felicia Semple (Honours student)
- Jun (Julian) Hsien Low (Honours student)
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- Ella Moeck (Postdoctoral research fellow)
- Devika Prakash (Honours student)
- Cedrick Bergola (Honours student)
- Emily Chan (Honours student)
- Sarah Pearse (Honours student)
- Yuet Sum (Jocelyn) Wong (Honours student)
- Jessica Polhill (Honours student)
- Janice Priskila Hermawan (Honours student)
- Tam Simpkin (Student intern)
- Ellie Taylor (Student intern)
-
- Akshay Chandran (Honours student)
- James Teague (Honours student)
- Janine Griffiths (Honours student)
- Patrick Davies (Honours student)
- Namwon (Kate) Kim (Honours student)
- Ankita Sen (Honours student)
- Julian Weiner-Angelopulo (Honours student)
- Jessica Lee (Honours student)
- Belinda Dalton (Honours student)
- Beth Clarke (Student intern)
- Skye Burnley (Student intern)
- Isobel Moore (Student intern)
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- Hayley Medland (PhD and Clinical Masters student)
- Yixia Zheng (PhD student)
- Paul Garrett
- Jack Woods (Honours student)
- Kristina Mei (Honours student)
- Joanne (Jo) Kostopoulos (Honours student)
- Yehudi (Hudi) Saling (Honours student)
- Lachlan Raymond Bagnara (Honours student)
- Komal Grewal (Honours student)
- Dr Bill Bingley (Research assistant)
- Xin Yi (Sydnei) Yang (Research Intern)
- Jasmin Kaur Sareen (Research Intern)
- Sophie Warner (Research Intern)
- Amy Bowring (Research Intern)
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- Annabelle Patten (Honours student)
- Emma McIntosh (Honours student)
- Lachlan Anthony (Honours student)
- Melissa Petrolo (Honours student)
- Rachel Sobel (Honours student)
- Tammy Lim (Honours student)
- Christine Beckett (Research intern)
- Patrick Burnett (Research intern)
- Nicholas Cheng (Research intern and Honours student)
- Dominik Kristen-Parsch (Research intern)
- Harry Speagle (Research intern)
- Sophie Yeung (Research intern)
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- Amani Nasarudin (Honours student)
- Jardine Louise Mitchell (Honours student)
- Jessica Mortlock (Honours student)
- Sylvia Chu Lin (Honours student)
- Bruce McIntyre (Research intern)
- Steven Leu (Research intern)
- Julia Schreiber (Visiting Master's student)
- Yaoxi Shi (Visiting Master's student)
Furry Friends of the FEEL Lab
External Collaborators
- Professor James Gross

Stanford University
Professor James Gross
James J. Gross received his B.A. in Philosophy from Yale University and his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. He is Professor of Psychology at Stanford and Director of the Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory. His research focuses on emotion and emotion regulation, and this research employs both experimental and individual-difference methods. His teaching includes introductory psychology as well as advanced seminars on emotion and emotion regulation.
- Professor Peter Kuppens

KU Leuven
University of Leuven
Professor Peter Kuppens
Peter Kuppens is Professor in the Research Group of Quantitative Psychology and Individual Differences at KU Leuven, Belgium. Peter's research focuses on componential (e.g., appraisal) theories of emotions, individual differences in emotional appraisal, experience, and dynamics and their relationships with personality and well-being, and formal models for contextualised personality and emotion research.
- Associate Professor Tom Hollenstein

Queen's University, Canada
Associate Professor Tom Hollenstein
Tom Hollenstein is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology, Queen's University, Canada. Tom's research examines socioemotional development, particularly in adolescence. Specifically, Tom's research focuses on the regulation of emotion as evidenced by changes in self-reported feelings, autonomic psychophysiology, and behavioural expressions. Tom is also active in developing and applying methods for the analysis of change, including state space grids (www.statespacegrids.org).
- Professor Maya Tamir

Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Professor Maya Tamir
Professor Maya Tamir is the Chair of the Psychology Department and the director of the Emotion and Self-Regulation Laboratory at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is an expert in emotion and emotion regulation. Her research examines motivational factors in emotion regulation and their implications for social and psychological functioning.
- Professor John Gleeson

Australian Catholic University
Professor John Gleeson
John Gleeson is Professor and Head of the School of Psychology at the Australian Catholic University. John is a clinical psychologist with 20 years experience in severe mental health problems. His research interests include psychological treatments in youth with psychosis, the use of moderated on-line social interventions for youth with mental health problems, and experience sampling methods in the understanding of anxiety and mood problems.
- Associate Professor Renee Thompson

Washington University
Associate Professor Renee Thompson
Renee Thompson’s research centers on understanding the everyday emotional experience in individuals diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder. She is principal investigator of the Emotion and Mental Health Lab. Thompson uses multi-method approaches, including ecological momentary assessment, to examine affective instability and other temporal dynamics of emotional experience. She is also interested in how components of emotion regulation (e.g., emotional awareness) and interpersonal factors (e.g., perceived rejection) affect the emotional experience of depressed, anxious, and healthy samples.
- Associate Professor Michael Slepian

Columbia Business School
Associate Professor Michael Slepian
Michael studies the psychology of secrets and how keeping secrets affect variables that govern social and organizational life, particularly trust and motivation. He has studied the consequences of keeping secrets, including how they change our behavior, judgments and actions. He studies the effects of both personal and professional secrets for the individual secret keeper as well as whether we can tell when others are concealing information from us.
- Dr Tony Gutentag

School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University
Dr Tony Gutentag
Gutentag suggests that making health professionals more strongly motivated to regulate their emotions will make them more successful at regulating them, and will thus contribute to their well-being. Health professionals’ well-being is important in and of itself, but it also contributes to their work quality (e.g., physicians who are less burned-out are more attentive to their patients). In our lab we do basic science, as well as design and test interventions to promote health professionals’ well-being.
