Principal investigator
Dr. Caroline Erentzen, JD/LLB, PhD
I am an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Toronto Metropolitan University. I study the intersection of psychology and law and the way that social identities influence the risk of violence and victimization. Prior to pursing an academic career path in psychology, I obtained a law degree and practiced as a lawyer at the Ontario bar from 2007 to 2019.
Graduate students
Sarah Martin, BA
Sarah is working on her Master’s degree at TMU under the supervision of Dr. Erentzen. Her research interests include the stigmatizing consequences of being falsely accused of child sexual abuse, and how offence stigma may affect the presumption of innocence. She completed her BA in Psychology at York University, with a fourth year project on the role of ‘ideal victim’ stereotypes on perceptions of sexual assault. Personal interests include the history of psychology, the history of crime, Indigenous culture, and the study of religion.
Joey Vong, BA
Joey is a Master’s student in the Psychology Department at TMU, working under the supervision of Dr. Erentzen. Their research interests include queer, racialized identities and how they may be subjected to gatekeeping by other member of those groups. They are interviewing queer women in the Toronto area about their experiences with identity gatekeeping and how racial identities may influence feelings of belonging. Joey completed an Honours BA at TMU and received CGS-M scholarship support for their studies.
Undergraduate thesis students
Kanika Lekhi
Kanika is a fourth year undergraduate student pursuing a major in psychology and a minor in criminology. She is interested in how psychology and the law interact and hopes to work in the field of forensic psychology. She is working on her thesis with the PLJ lab focusing on the impact of unreliable witnesses and evidence on jury decision making. In her free time, she loves painting, playing sports, and fitness. She hopes to pursue graduate studies in the future.
Danielle Castelhano
Danielle is a fourth-year undergraduate psychology student at Toronto Metropolitan University. She is interested in the intersection of psychology and social justice, particularly in prejudice, discrimination, gender, and sexuality. Danielle’s thesis investigates how online media consumption and Manosphere content shapes attitudes toward gender roles and stranger sexual harassment. Danielle hopes to pursue graduate studies in the future.
Project Students
Ann-Marie Paris
Ann-Marie joined the lab as a research assistant in 2024. She is an undergraduate student at TMU, working on projects related to stranger sexual harassment and male victimization. Her interests include exercise, listening to podcasts about crime and psychology, and spending time with family and loved ones. Her career interests include working in forensic psychology, specifically with vulnerable populations in prisons and/or in general populations.
Miriam Rachlis
Miriam joined the lab in the fall of 2024 to assist on a project related to moral psychology. She will be assisting with a major research project in the Winter of 2025 investigating wrongful convictions.
Research Assistants
Emma Russo
Emma is a third-year student at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She is majoring in Law, Justice, and Society and minoring in Psychology. She is interested in the intersection between law and psychology and plans to attend law school to continue her studies. Emma joined the PLJ lab in the summer of 2024 and assisted with compiling a database of exonerated persons. She is currently assisting on a new project pertaining to young male victimization experiences of intimate partner violence.
Yusuf Ghauri
Yusuf is a research assistant at the PLJ Lab. He assisted with a project examining characteristics of exonerated persons, a project investigating Reddit posts about false accusations, and he will assist on a systematic review of male IPV victimization. His research interests involve intersectionality, cognition, and mental health. He hopes to pursue graduate studies in clinical psychology and work with forensic populations.
Zoe Cruver
Zoe is joining the lab in Winter of 2025 to assist with projects in the lab pertaining to hate crime, bystander intention to intervene in bias incidents, and behavioural forecasting.
Sana Mohammed
Sana is a fourth year undergraduate student at TMU, majoring in Psychology and minoring in French, with the hopes of becoming a successful clinical psychologist. Her hobbies include photography, painting and crocheting. She also has a passion for travel and cannot wait to travel the world someday. She assisted with coding open ended data on stranger sexual harassment and will be working on a systematic review of male IPV.
Past STudents
Megan Zambri
Megan completed her honours thesis with the PLJ Lab in 2023-24, exploring the moral foundations of attitudes toward transgender persons. She hopes one day to be a counsellor to children and families and to teach them healthy coping mechanisms.
Nabeeha Mahmoud
Nabeeha completed her honours thesis with the PLJ Lab in 2023-24, examining religious bias toward Muslim defendants in Canadian juries. She is interested in the intersection of psychology and law, and hopes to pursue a career in law.
Bianca Cusimano
Bianca completed her Honours thesis with the PLJ Lab in 2023-24, investigating how observers perceive online stranger sexual harassment. Bianca graduated from the Psychology Department in 2024 and is pursuing a teaching degree.
Tatiana Kilislian
Tatiana joined the PLJ Lab in 2024 as an independent project student, assisting on a project exploring false accusations of child abuse as a factor leading to wrongful convictions. Her research interests include solitary confinement and the adverse effects it has on the mental and physical well-being of prisoners. She hopes to pursue graduate school in the field of Clinical Psychology.
Ayse Makarnaci
Ayse joined the lab as a research assistant between 2022-2024. She won a URO grant to work full-time on a project investigating stranger sexual harassment. She continued with the lab in 2023-24, overseeing projects related to sexual harassment and ambivalent sexism. She completed an honours thesis with Dr. Goodwill. She is pursuing graduate studies in forensic clinical psychology at the University of Hertfordshire.
Juliana Cocuzzo
Juliana joined the PLJ Lab in 2024 as an independent project student, assisting on a project exploring jailhouse informant evidence. Some of her research interests include wrongful convictions, unreliable witnesses, and the perceived credibility of the Not Criminally Responsible plea. She is currently exploring careers in both psychology and law.
Ashley Maharaj
Ashley joined the PLJ lab as a research assistant between 2022-2024. She assisted with a large project exploring exonerations from false accusations of child sexual abuse. She completed her honours thesis in the ASPIRE lab at TMU with Dr. Persram. Her research interests include the social-cognitive development of children. She hopes to pursue graduate studies in clinical psychology.
Geovanna da Silva Kasprowicz
Geovana is a 4th-year undergraduate student in the Department of Psychology. She is an international student from Brazil and her research interests include social psychology, gender, sexual behaviour, personality, and relationships. Her thesis project investigated body image, gender norms, and sexual satisfaction in bisexual women. She is assisted the PLJ lab with research exploring identity-based stranger sexual harassment.