Emma Toner serves on TYDE’s Training and Events Committee.
Toner is a fifth-year graduate student of UVa’s Department of Psychology and a member of its Program for Anxiety, Cognition and Treatment (PACT) Lab.
Her research leverages tools from complex systems science and computational modeling to psychological problems like anxiety and loneliness. In particular, she is interested in identifying the dynamic interactions among psychological and social factors that contribute to these problems. To do so, she uses experimental paradigms, real-time data collection methods (e.g., passive sensing technology; ecological momentary assessment), and computational modeling to iteratively develop, formalize, test, and refine psychological theories and examine how psychological processes unfold across timescales and contexts. She hopes this work will advance our understanding of the mutually reinforcing interactions among components of complex systems that produce and reinforce states of mental disorder so that we may ultimately improve treatment.