PhD Student:
daniela.quesadarodriguez [at] mail.mcgill.ca
Daniela is a first-year Clinical Psychology Ph.D. student at McGill University. She is enthusiastic about innovative health interventions and how they can promote behavior change, particularly through accessible digital tools. She is currently advancing the development of ACTaide, a therapy-companion mobile application designed to support between-session practice of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) exercises and metaphors. Her research focuses on transforming ACTaide into a clinically-ready tool and evaluating its use in therapeutic settings.
Publications
Thapar, S., et al. (2025). ACTaide: Therapist and client co-design study. JMIR Formative Research, 9, e69532. https://formative.jmir.org/2025/1/e69532
Conference Presentations
Quesada, D., Thapar, S., & Knäuper, B. (2025, May 30-June 1). Therapist and client co-design of ACTaide: A therapy companion mobile app for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy [Poster Presentation]. Congrès 2025 de la Société Québécoise pour la Recherche en Psychologie, Saint-Sauveur, Canada.
Quesada, D., Thapar, S., & Knäuper, B. (2025, May 5-9). Therapist and client co-design of ACTaide: A therapy companion mobile app for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy [Open Communication]. 92e Congrès de l’Acfas 2025, Montreal, Canada.
Parent, O., McGuinness, M., Osborne, S., Mukora, A., Costantino, M., Quesada, D., Devenyi, G. A., Juster, R., Dadar, M. & Chakravarty, M. M. (2025, May 6-7). Gendered lifestyles as a data-driven spectrum: Associations with brain morphology and microstructure [Poster Presentation]. Healthy Brains Healthy Lives (HBHL) Symposium 2025, Montreal, Canada.
Thapar, S., Quesada, D., & Knäuper, B. (2024, July 25-28). Therapist co-design of Actaide: A therapy-companion mobile app for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy [Poster Presentation]. The Association for Contextual Behavioral Science World Conference, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Quesada, D., Thapar, S., & Knäuper, B. (2024, May 16-17). Therapist co-design of Actaide: A therapy-companion mobile app for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy [Poster Presentation]. McGill Summer Institute for School Psychology, Montreal, QC, Canada. (Virtual).
Funding
2025–2026 | SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship – Master’s (CGS M) - $27,000