Our Team

Leila Rezaei

Postdoctoral Fellow
PhD in Chemical Engineering, Dalhousie University
Project Title: Investigation of gut microbiome metabolism and host-microbe interactions in mental health, neurodevelopment, and health behaviors
T. 403.441.8470
leila.rezaei@ucalgary.ca

Leila earned her PhD from Dalhousie University, where she specialized in the reconstruction and validation of genome-scale metabolic models. Her research focused on applying these models to understand the complexity of cellular metabolism and biological systems.

Juan Vélez Ixta

Postdoctoral Fellow
PhD in Genetics and Molecular Biology, CINVESTAV
Project Title: Gut Microbiome-Brain Axis in Early Life: Developmental Windows for Socioemotional Resilience After Prenatal Stress
juan.velezixta@ucalgary.ca

Juan holds a PhD from the Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute (CINVESTAV) in Mexico. His research explores the human microbiota through innovative data integration approaches, drawing on his expertise in microbiota, metabolomics, and bioinformatics. His past work focused on the metabolites and bacteria present in human milk. Juan is also committed to advancing scientific research through free and open-source software solutions.

Dana Watts

PhD Student, Clinical Psychology
MSc in Experimental Psychology, University of Calgary
Project Title: Examining the association between prenatal stress and child executive function
dana.watts@ucalgary.ca

Dana graduated with MSc in Experimental Psychology and BA Honours in Psychology from the University of Calgary. She is completing her PhD in Clinical Psychology under the supervision of Dr. Giesbrecht in Fall 2023. Her past research focuses have included exploring the relationship between cannabis use during pregnancy and its association with childhood development, and exploration into how wearable technology can be used in psychobiological research.

Samarpreet Singh

Master's Student, Clinical Psychology
University of Calgary
Project Title: TBD
samarpreet.singh@ucalgary.ca

Huldah Bukasa

Honours Student
BA in Psychology
Project title: TBD

Hind Messouar

Independent Study Student
BA in Psychology
Project title: TBD

Melinda van Sloten

Research Program Manager
T. 403.441.8414
mmzwart@ucalgary.ca

Melinda graduated with distinction from UCalgary with a BA in Psychology. She has been with the team since April 2020 and has been the project coordinator for the Pregnancy during the Pandemic study since August 2021. 

Dr. Beatrice (Pui Yee) Lai

Data Manager
Beatrice graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong with a PhD in Psychology. She is interested in pregnancy stress and child mental health. She has joined the team to assist in managing the data.

Amnish Brar

Research Assistant

Amnish was born and raised in Calgary and recently completed her psychology degree at the University of Calgary. She also completed an honours project under the supervision of Dr. Giesbrecht titled, "The association between Mediterranean diet adherence and childhood internalizing problems". Her current research interest is understanding the role of nutrition as a predictor of childhood mental health outcomes.

Cleo Hendrickson

Research Assistant

Cleo graduated from the University of Calgary with a BSc in Psychology and is now pursuing her MSc in Neuroscience. She is currently working on designing a clinical trial for fecal microbial transplants in adolescents with ADHD. Her past research experience includes projects in paediatrics psychobiology and cellular/molecular neuroscience. She has been with the Pregnancy during the Pandemic study team as an RA since September 2022. 

Anamika Kambo

Research Assistant

Anamika has graduated from the University of Calgary with a BA in Psychology and an embedded certificate in Mental Wellbeing and Resilience. She is currently on the last steps of completing her MSc in Health Psychology from the University College of London. Her past research experience has included working on the BMT Study at The Tom Baker Cancer Centre where she submitted an abstract to Cell Therapy Transplant Canada 2021 titled “The Benefits of Psychosocial care services for Distressed Cancer Patients Treated with Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation: Proposal for a Longitudinal Retrospective Study.

Rogaya Khelif

Research Assistant

Rogaya graduated from the University of Calgary with a BSc in Psychology and is now working as a full-time research assistant. She initially joined the lab as a French volunteer to help with the Pregnancy during the Pandemic study and later completed a PSYC 499 course to finally land in her current position. 

Emily Ward

Research Assistant

Emily recently completed her Bachelor of Science in Psychology at the University of Calgary. She joined the Developmental Psychobiology lab to help with the Pregnancy during the Pandemic study. More recently, Emily has been completing an independent research project under the supervision of Dr. Giesbrecht. Emily’s project investigates the associations between objectively measured daily physical activity level and the HPA axis function during pregnancy.