Principal Investigator
Professor Marc Wilson, PhD. (he/him)
Marc is a teacher and researcher at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. He started at Victoria University straight from school and has never left, completing his BSc, Honours, and PhD here, before being appointed to his first lectureship in 2003. Marc’s research interests are broad because he’s interested in everything, but his ‘training’ is in social and political psychology (understanding social and political behaviour). Marc is also interested in what people eat, the music they listen to, and the (sometimes odd) things they believe. Since 2007, he has researched self-injury, because it seems to have become more common, particularly among young people presenting to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.
Clinical Research Fellows
Gloria Fraser, PhD. (she/her)
(Kāi Tahu, Kāti Mamoe)
Gloria has been a member of the Youth Wellbeing Study whānau since 2016 and is a qualified clinical psychologist. She is particularly interested in the intersection of sex-sexuality-gender diversity and clinical psychology. Gloria’s doctoral research focused on rainbow experiences of mental health support in Aotearoa. Currently, Gloria splits her time between working in clinical practice, teaching, and providing clinical guidance on the project.
Jessica Garisch, PhD. (she/her)
Jessica has been conducting research in the area of adolescent well-being for over a decade, and has been working with young people and their whānau as a clinical psychologist since 2011. Jessica is particularly interested in emotion regulation and adolescent wellbeing, as well as the development and implementation of feasible and evidence-based programmes to support young people. Currently, Jessica splits her time between working in clinical practice, and providing clinical guidance on the project.
Graduate Students
Kylie Sutcliffe, PhD student (she/her)
Kylie started psychology study at Victoria last millennium. After a detour through English literature, public library work, visual art and book publishing, she’s back where she started. Kylie has deferred from clinical psychology training to conduct research into mental health need among adolescents in Aotearoa New Zealand, available services, and opportunities to bridge the gaps between the two.
Alana Haenga-O’Brien, PhD student in Māori Studies and Psychology (she/her)
(Ngāti Porou, Te Whānau a Apanui)
‘Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini. My strength is not that of a single warrior but that of many.
He wiwi Naati o Porourangi awau. Nō te Tairāwhiti whānui ōku tipuna’.
Alana has deferred from the Clinical Psychology Programme to begin research on wairuatanga (Māori spirituality, as defined by a Māori worldview) and psychological wellbeing for rangatahi Māori. She is highly passionate about Māori wellbeing and therefore reclaiming Māori histories, identities, stories, and traditional knowledge systems for the empowerment of Māori.
Kate McLeod, PhD student (she/her)
(Te Taoū, Ngāti Whātua)
Kate is a PhD student conducting research into positives of queer, trans and intersex identity and experience.
Ellie Rukuwai, PhD student (she/her)
(Ngāti Tūwharetoa)
Ellie is a PhD student who has deferred from the Clinical Psychology Programme to carry out her research. She is looking into perfectionism in rangatahi Māori and how this may be conceptualised differently for Māori due to culturally bound concepts such as mana and whakamā (loosely translated as shame, shyness, or embarrassment).
Niusha Aryan, PhD Student (she/her)
Niusha comes from a background of 7+ years in youth work and is currently doing her PhD part-time alongside the Clinical Psychology Programme at Victoria University. Her doctoral research explores the psychological wellbeing of migrant and refugee youth in New Zealand. Specifically, she wants to understand how these young people are doing when it comes to their psychological wellbeing, and what factors facilitate or challenge wellbeing for them. Her research also looks at the Non Suicidal Self Injury and Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviours present in these young people.
Bailey Rose, PhD student (she/her)
(Ngāti Maniapoto)
Bailey is a PhD and clinical psychology student that is currently deferred from the Clinical Programme. Her research seeks to understand the experiences and needs of Māori with eating disorders, She is also passionate about indigenous psychology and Māori health and wellbeing.
Jon Vega Guerra, PhD candidate (he/him)
Having originally immigrated to New Zealand from Mexico, Jon always found it fascinating to make note of his own struggle and that of fellow immigrants towards developing new social skills and understanding new social norms found in a host nation and how these may subsequently affect mental health. This passion for understanding social issues concerning a struggling individual and how he/she/they relate to a group was emboldened by his undergraduate studies at Otago University and subsequent Honours year at Canterbury University. Having originally researched intergroup relations and tolerance within religious, public health, and social justice contexts, Jon decided to move on to exploring intragroup social dynamics. This allowed him to come back to his original passion of researching how unspoken social norms help a group regulate its social interactions as well as allow it to recognize those individuals that break such norms, making them noticeable and problematic. His interest remains general in this area but he is mainly focused on researching what a group attributes this norm-breaking to, as well as helping social therapy and practice to account for what may hinder an individual (immigrant or not) to flourish socially within a given group or space.
Terise Broodryk, PhD candidate (she/her)
Terise is a PhD candidate and deferred clinical psychology student with a wide range of research interests. Her PhD research seeks to combine both political psychology and clinically-relevant research by exploring the emotion regulation strategies used by young people when faced with constant negative political news and how this impacts both on their political participation and wider wellbeing.
Oliver Donaldson, Master’s student (he/they)
Oliver is a Master’s student conducting research on the impacts of TV show and film representations on transgender people’s identity processes and mental health. He is particularly interested in Rainbow and transgender history, media representations of the Rainbow community, and how these and other factors relate to the mental health of those in minority communities.
Hope Robyns Mackay, Master’s student (she/her)
Hope is a Master’s student currently working on her thesis investigating the relationships between substance use, self-esteem and affiliation with the wider queer community in Aotearoa’s sexual minority youth.
Luisa Bucci, Master’s student (she/her)
Originally from Brazil, Luisa is a Masters and clinical psychology student at Te Herenga Waka. Her research focuses on experiences of migrants living in Aotearoa during the Covid-19 pandemic and how this impacted their wellbeing and mental health.
Maggie Shippam, Honours student (they/them)
Maggie has worked within the youth work sector since 2011 and is passionate about improving the wellbeing and outcomes of rainbow and neurodiverse/disabled young people in their community. More recently, Maggie turned their attention towards advisory work as well as conducting research in those areas. During their time as a psychology student, they focused both their directed independent study and honours thesis on the psychological wellbeing of adolescents with long-term health conditions.
Other Team Members
Angelique O’Connell, Nuzha Saleem, André Boyte, Tatyana King-Finau, Fiona Grattan, Caitlin Tottle, Sahina Hossen, and Terise Broodryk.
Previous Team Members
Dr Kealagh Robinson, Dr Madeleine Brocklesby, Dr Emma Brown, Dr Maddie Judge, Dr Tahlia Kingi, Dr Robyn Langlands, Dr Lynne Russell, Morgan Reedy, and Nikki Miles.
Pets of the YWS
Youth Wellbeing Study 