Annabel Sibalis and Katey Park

Stream / Psychological Science

Katey Park, MA and Annabel Sibalis, MA are PhD Candidates in the Psychological Science stream.

There has been increasing research showing that graduate students face unique stressors that put them at heightened risk for mental health challenges. As advocates of graduate student mental health, Katey and Annabel have long served departmental initiatives focused on student wellness within the psychology graduate student-led Mental Health and Wellbeing Group. In 2019, they collaborated with colleagues to develop a survey assessing the wellbeing of psychology graduate students at Ryerson University. The survey assessed mental health, financial strain, student-supervisor relationship satisfaction, and student recommendations for wellbeing. The results were met with great interest from faculty within the psychology department and have been instrumental in the department’s efforts to advocate for a variety of services to continually support psychology graduate students.

Following completion of this project, Katey and Annabel teamed up with the Yeates School of Graduate Studies (YSGS) to develop and administer Ryerson University’s first-ever Mental Health and Wellbeing of Graduate Students Evaluation. This survey-based evaluation was designed in partnership with YSGS deans and was administered to graduate students in late 2020. Katey and Annabel are currently analyzing results and disseminating the findings from this work to YSGS deans, Ryerson University administrators, and the broader Ryerson University community (including presenting at the Ryerson Senate Committee of the Whole in Spring 2021).

Katey and Annabel are both passionate about researching and advocating for student wellness in academia. In addition, they remain engaged in their primary areas of research: Katey investigates eating behaviour, exercise and body image (and more recently, explores the impact of exercise behaviour change during the COVID-19 pandemic), while Annabel investigates mental health in children and youth, with a focus on neurophysiological methods to examine attention and its relation to mental health symptoms, social skills, and executive functioning.