Two international honours for postdoctoral fellow Kristie Poole – “a role model for everyone in the lab”

Postdoctoral fellow Kristie Poole has given professor Louis Schmidt back-to-back reasons to celebrate in his Child Emotion Laboratory.

Kristie is one of five emerging scholars – and the only researcher at a Canadian university – to receive the 2025 Early Career Research Contribution Award from the Society for Research in Child Development. Louis is quick to point out this is a very big deal – it’s a major award from a prestigious international association with approximately 5,500 researchers, practitioners and professionals from more than 50 countries. Kristie will be honoured during the society’s 2025 biennial meeting and awards ceremony May 1.

Kristie’s also just been named a Rising Star from the Association for Psychological Science – it’s an international non-profit with a mission to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in research, application, teaching, and the improvement of human welfare. Their Rising Star designation is given to association members who, in the earliest stages of their research career post-PhD and independent of their mentors, have achieved significant publications, recognitions, discoveries, methodological innovations or theoretical or empirical contributions. Kristie was one of five researchers at Canadian universities to receive the designation last month.

Kristie – who’s collaborated on projects in the lab since she was as an undergrad nearly a decade ago – studies children’s social and emotional development, with a particular interest in how temperament – or early personality – impacts developmental outcomes. She’s fascinated by how children learn to understand and interact with their social worlds. “Children undergo immense social and emotional development over their young lives – I love trying to understand individual differences in these processes.”

Louis says the two honours put Kristie among an elite group of top international rising stars in the field of child development research. He says Kristie, through her independent research program funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, is asking novel questions that could lead to important theoretical and practical implications in the field of socioemotional development.

He adds that while the recognition is impressive, it’s not at all surprising. “Kristie’s love for research, learning and teaching is unparalleled among her peers. She’ s conceptually and methodologically exceptional and her passion for establishing and disseminating knowledge is truly inspirational to myself and all the trainees and student learners in the lab.”

Kristie was introduced to the field of child development while taking an elective as a Life Sciences undergraduate student. She then studied health research methodology for her master’s degree and earned a PhD in psychology. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Waterloo and a Banting postdoctoral fellowship at Brock University, Kristie went back to Mac as a postdoc in Louis’ lab.

“Kristie’s already been instrumental in mentoring the next generation of researchers and clinicians in the field of human development,” says Louis. “She’s a role model for everyone in the lab.”

Kristie says she sees herself in the undergraduate and graduate students she supervises in her research program. “I love this part of the job. You definitely know when students are curious, have a real passion for the research along with the drive and openness to learn.”

She credits Louis for showing her how to be a supportive mentor – those constant celebrations in the lab have made a definite impression. “The world of academia is filled with failure and rejection. Louis has taught me the importance of celebrating all successes – no matter how big or small.”

While Kristie is a first-generation student, she says she’s never felt any of the parental pressure that can weigh heavily on students who are the first in their families to go to university. Kristie’s family has attended all three of Kristie’s Convocation ceremonies at McMaster. At her PhD ceremony, Kristie’s parents asked to meet Louis – they wanted to thank him for supervising and mentoring their daughter.

True to form, Louis – a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Association for Psychological Science, the 2023 recipient of the Pickering Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contributions to Developmental Psychology in Canada and the Faculty of Science Research Chair in Early Determinants of Mental Health – stayed humble and downplayed the support he’d given to Kristie over the years.

“With a smile, Louis told my parents that mentoring me was easy – he just stays out of my way. That was a very kind and generous thing to say – although of course he’s played a pivotal role in shaping my academic journey.”

And while she already has two prestigious honours near the start of her post-PhD journey, Louis predicts there will be many more reasons to celebrate. “Kristie is destined to have a brilliant career.”