The Pickering Award for Outstanding Contribution to Developmental Psychology in Canada

Dr. Vaillancourt is the Tier I Canada Research Chair in School-Based Mental Health and Violence Prevention in the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa. Her groundbreaking research was instrumental to the integration of bullying into the Ontario Education Act, documenting the long-term impact of bullying across domains of children’s functioning, and showing that stress responses to bullying are linked to memory deficits and downstream mental health and academic achievement problems. Dr. Vaillancourt’s research has earned over $150 million in funding support, described in over 200 peer-reviewed publications and hundreds more invited talks, conference presentations, book chapters, and op-eds. As a leader, Dr. Vaillancourt is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and leading its Pandemic Learning Loss working group in partnership with the Canadian Commission of UNESCO. She is past-President of the International Society for Research on Aggression. Finally, Dr. Vaillancourt has an impressive record of student mentorship, having received two teaching awards and supervised dozens of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, many of whom wrote enthusiastic testimonials describing her pivotal role in their careers.

Please join me in congratulating Dr. Vaillancourt, and save the date! She will deliver the Pickering Lecture at Carleton University on Thursday, September 25^th, 2025. This event will be in-person and open to the public.