Lab Members

Katherine Maurer, PhD LMSW

Assistant Professor

McGill University, School of Social Work

Dr. Katherine Maurer is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work Associate Member Department of Pediatrics, Divisions of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine and a faculty member of the Centre for Research on Children and Families at McGill University. She obtained her Ph.D. in Clinical Social Work at New York University Silver School of Social Work and a Master of Social Work from Hunter College School of Social Work. Dr. Maurer practiced in New York City as a trauma therapist and clinical social worker with marginalised populations. She has a particular expertise in working with homeless populations as well as perpetrators of domestic violence.

The focus of her research is on understanding the processes by which stressful experiences affect life course outcomes through a mixed methods approach drawing on both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies. More specifically, Dr. Maurer studies the physiological impact of exposure to extreme stressors, such as interpersonal violence and poverty, on the development of self-regulation capacities in adolescence and adults. She also has a particular interest on adolescent mental and behavioral health during the transition to adulthood. An ethics-based commitment to promote social justice and critical thought is at the centre of Dr. Maurer's approach. A central aspect of her research is to critique, modify and test etiological theories of family violence perpetration.

Dr. Maurer has held research fellowships with New York University’s McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research and the University of California-Davis Center for Poverty Research. Her poverty research focuses on the development and application of social capital theory in social work policy and practice and the social reproduction of disadvantage in the context of gender, socioeconomic status, and ethnic/racial identities. Dr. Maurer is the recipient of a 2016 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant to conduct a phenomenological study of affect regulation with adolescents who have experienced violence in their family as part of her research agenda focusing on the intergenerational transmission of family violence. She is also the principal investigator of community-university research collaboration with the Old Brewery Mission in Montreal. This collaborative research is part of ongoing evaluation of the services that the Mission' provides to the homeless population in Montreal.

Katy Konyk, MSW

Katy is a doctoral student with the McGill School of Social Work. She joined the school in 2018 under the supervision of Professor Katherine Maurer. Katy’s research focuses on occupational mental health and resiliency in high stress work environments. Her dissertation will examine the factors that contribute to adverse mental health outcomes in Canadian correctional officers and factors contributing to their resiliency.

Katy comes to the doctoral program after having worked as both a community worker and as a mental health clinician in Canada and the United States. She has provided individual and group counselling to individuals within a psychiatric facility and to adult males living in the community with criminal justice involvement. Katy was part of a pilot program between the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Corrections and Community Safety where she was a forensic social worker supporting adults within the Toronto South Detention Centre. Katy was also part of a province-wide initiative to deliver mental health and human rights training to correctional staff. It was in this role that Katy became inspired to research the mental health of Canadian correctional officers.

She holds a Masters in Social Work from the University of Toronto and a Bachelors of Arts in Anthropology from the University of British Columbia.

Mert Kimyaci, B.Sc.

Mert has been a part of the team since October 2018. He completed his Bachelor of Science in Psychology at the McGill University and is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Social Work degree. His past research experience has been in the fields of emotion regulation and behavioral physiology. Currently he is involved in the implementation of the JoyPop study: Promoting brain health and resilience in social work students: Implementation and evaluation of a smartphone application. 

Hannah Brais, M.Sc.

Hannah Brais is the current research coordinator at the Old Brewery Mission as well as a PhD student in the McGill Geography department. She holds both an MSc of Geography, Urban and Environmental Studies and a BA of Urban Planning from Concordia University. Her current research focuses on specific questions surrounding homelessness, including women, veterans, low-barrier programming and policing. As a former housing advocate, her previous work focused on financialization, precarity, gentrification and Canadian landlord-tenant policies.