EDRG Staff

Our Early Development Research Group staff coordinate between our seven centers and communicate with families about participating with us. Read below about our amazing staff members.

Recruitment Coordinator Sarvenaz Oloomi Pronouns: She/Her/Hers Sarvenaz recently completed her B.A. in Honours Psychology at the University of British Columbia in 2022. Throughout her degree, she was involved in leadership and research positions. She started her research experience at the UBC Infant Studies Center (one of the seven centers at the EDRG) as an RA, where she later completed her third-year honours thesis with Dr. Janet Werker on infant language acquisition as an NSERC USRA. She completed a second honours thesis at the Perinatal Anxiety Research Lab working directly with Dr. Nichole Fairbrother on psychological predictors of verbal aggression towards infants. Outside of research, she has served as the co-president of UBC Persian Club, she has TA’ed in the Psychology and Asian Studies departments, and has been a campus orientation and first-year experience leader. Sarvenaz is enthusiastic to engage with families and answer any questions about our centers. In her free time, she is a member of a competitive UBC acapella group, loves to read, and is often at the gym or playing basketball and badminton. Contact: edrg(at)psych.ubc.ca

Hospital Recruiter Lucia Youka Munoz Murakami Pronouns: She/Her/Hers Lucia completed her H.B.Sc as a Psychology Specialist student at the University of Toronto in 2021. During her undergraduate degree, she previously worked with the Biopsychosocial Investigations of Gender Laboratory (BIG Lab) as a Research Assistant under Dr. Doug P. VanderLaan; where she was the first author of a published study that assessed whether a Child Behavior Checklist 10-item screener could investigate the association between Autism Spectrum Disorder and Childhood Gender Variance in non-clinical populations. Lucia is excited about working as Hospital Recruiter for the Early Development Research Group (EDRG). She visits mothers in the Children’s hospital maternity wards to recruit newborns and their older siblings for EDRG studies and is overjoyed in gaining more experience in developmental psychology research. In her free time, Lucia enjoys various hobbies such as stand-up paddle boarding, hiking, fantasy adventure novels and shows and baking. Contact: edrg_bccw(at)psych.ubc.ca