{"id":536,"date":"2023-04-07T18:06:45","date_gmt":"2023-04-07T22:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.psychlabs.ryerson.ca\/template1\/?page_id=536"},"modified":"2025-09-15T11:54:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T15:54:00","slug":"about-us","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/psychlabs.torontomu.ca\/psychmed\/about-us\/","title":{"rendered":"About Us"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-page\" data-elementor-id=\"536\" class=\"elementor elementor-536\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-a25be9f no-dots elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"a25be9f\" data-element_type=\"section\" data-e-type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-d37d5db\" data-id=\"d37d5db\" data-element_type=\"column\" data-e-type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-4532ee1 elementor-widget elementor-widget-heading\" data-id=\"4532ee1\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"heading.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<h2 class=\"elementor-heading-title elementor-size-default\">ABOUT US<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-7d8fec3 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"7d8fec3\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>Our lab focuses on understanding how the diagnosis of a chronic illness affects individuals and couples. Specifically, we are interested in investigating psychosocial factors that are salient to illness adjustment, which include intimate relationship dynamics, coping strategies, psychological distress, informational needs, and health perceptions. Understanding these constructs is important for the development of interventions and resources to improve quality of life, symptom management, and psychological adaption for chronically-ill individuals and\/or their partners.<\/p><p>We are currently conducting research on the impact of cancer (i.e., colorectal and breast), as well as other chronic illnesses and inherited cancer suceptiblity conditions, such as multiple sclerosis and Lynch syndrome (i.e., hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer).<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-7a0da6a elementor-widget elementor-widget-shortcode\" data-id=\"7a0da6a\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"shortcode.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-shortcode\"><ul class=\"team-filters clean\"><li class=\"active\" data-filter=\"all\">All Members<\/li><\/ul><div class=\"team-grid \"><div class=\"team-grid-item filter-all\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"316\" height=\"341\" src=\"https:\/\/psychlabs.torontomu.ca\/psychmed\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/28\/2025\/09\/tae-hart-316x341.jpg\" class=\"attachment-team size-team wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/><p class=\"role-title\">Lab Director<\/p><p class=\"team-name\">Tae Hart, PhD<\/p><div class=\"team-contact hide\"><div class=\"contact-email\"><a href=\"mailto:tae.hart@torontomu.ca\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Email Tae Hart, PhD\">tae.hart@torontomu.ca<\/a><\/div><div class=\"contact-phone\">416-979-5000 ext. 554247<\/div><\/div><div class=\"post-content hide\"><p>I received my B.A. in psychology from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. I completed an APA-approved clinical internship at the Palo Alto Veteran\u2019s Affairs Medical Center, followed by a National Institute of Mental Health research postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry at Stanford University. After working for four years as a faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, I moved to Toronto in 2007 to join the Department of Psychology at Toronto Metropolitan University. In addition to my position at Toronto Metropolitan University, I hold a research appointment at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute at St. Michael\u2019s Hospital. Much of my research is conducted at the Zane Cohen Centre for Digestive Diseases at Mount Sinai Hospital, where I also hold a scientific research staff appointment.<\/p>\n<p>My research centers on psychological factors associated with adjustment to illness in chronically-ill individuals. Primarily, my work has investigated quality of life, psychological distress, and symptom burden in patients who have been diagnosed with cancer, multiple sclerosis, or gastrointestinal disorders.<\/p>\n<p>At the current time, my lab is in the process of analyzing data from several completed studies. Past research projects have been funded by the U.S. National Institute of Health, CIHR, Canadian MS Scientific Research Foundation, Canadian Breast Cancer Research Alliance, and the Lance Armstrong Foundation.<\/p>\n<\/div><p><a class=\"more target-modal\" href=\"https:\/\/psychlabs.torontomu.ca\/psychmed\/team\/tae-hart-phd\/\">Learn more<\/a><\/p><\/div><div class=\"team-grid-item filter-all\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"316\" height=\"341\" src=\"https:\/\/psychlabs.torontomu.ca\/psychmed\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/28\/2025\/09\/kaitlin-mcgarragle-316x341.jpg\" class=\"attachment-team size-team wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/><p class=\"team-name\">Kaitlin McGarragle<\/p><div class=\"post-content hide\"><p>Kaitlin joined the Psychosocial Medicine Lab in 2017 as the Lab Manager and began her MA in clinical psychology in 2020. Her research interests include psychosocial wellbeing, symptom management, and health behaviours in cancer survivors and other individuals living with chronic health conditions, as well as eating disorders. Kaitlin\u2019s master\u2019s thesis was a qualitative project exploring dyadic coping congruence in couples coping with multiple sclerosis. Kaitlin\u2019s doctoral dissertation focuses on negative and positive affect in relation to the experience of binge eating.<\/p>\n<\/div><p><a class=\"more target-modal\" href=\"https:\/\/psychlabs.torontomu.ca\/psychmed\/team\/kaitlin-mcgarragle\/\">Learn more<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ABOUT US Our lab focuses on understanding how the diagnosis of a chronic illness affects individuals and couples. Specifically, we&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-536","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychlabs.torontomu.ca\/psychmed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychlabs.torontomu.ca\/psychmed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychlabs.torontomu.ca\/psychmed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychlabs.torontomu.ca\/psychmed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychlabs.torontomu.ca\/psychmed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536"}],"version-history":[{"count":35,"href":"https:\/\/psychlabs.torontomu.ca\/psychmed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1221,"href":"https:\/\/psychlabs.torontomu.ca\/psychmed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/536\/revisions\/1221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychlabs.torontomu.ca\/psychmed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}