Dr. Samantha Dawson joined the Couples and Sexual Health Research Lab as a postdoctoral fellow in 2018 following completion of her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Queen’s University in Kingston. She is the recipient of a SSHRC Banting postdoctoral fellowship and an IWK postdoctoral fellowship for 2019-2021. Her multi-method research program seeks to understand the cognitive and affective mechanisms underlying sexual arousal, desire, and behaviour. To do this, she has used psychophysiological measures (e.g., eye tracking, genital plethysmography) to capture the dynamic relationships involved in sexual arousal and desire. During her fellowship Sam is examining how cognitive and affective processes influence the sexual wellbeing of individuals and couples in the context of their daily lives, as well as over time, including during periods of known decline such as the transition to parenthood.
