News

BC Sexual Health Networking Event 2024 Last week we held our 4th Annual BC Sexual Health Networking Event with Phase Lab and UBC Sexual Health Research!   We had 100+ attendees from members of our amazing sexual health community in British Columbia including researchers and clinicians spanning across psychology, medicine, physiotherapy, nursing, and sex education.    We heard from an incredible line up of […]

To end 2023, we wanted to celebrate and savour all that we at the SWell Lab have achieved! This work would not be possible without the team of 22 incredibly dedicated lab members. We are so fortunate to the generous research funding we have received that allow us to do the research that we are so passionate about. We also want to acknowledge the invaluable contributions of our patient partners and advisors for […]

🎉Congrats to our two amazing SWell Lab Masters of Clinical Psychology graduates, Marta and Erin, who graduated this week! We are so so so incredibly proud of you both and cannot wait to see where your PhDs take you!🌟💙

💫 Meet the SWell Lab Team of 2023-2024! 🚀 💫 We are so thrilled to have such an innovative team of undergraduate and graduate students working in the SWell lab for 2023-2024 who all bring diverse perspectives and experiences to the work that we do! Stay tuned for some incredible updates, awards, knowledge translation, and most importantly sexuality science coming your way this year […]

We are thrilled to share that a SWell lab member won Best Student Poster at this year’s #iasr2023 in Montreal, Quebec! 🏆 MA student Simone Goldberg won Best Student Poster for her poster, “Cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental associations between genital self-image and own and perceived partner sexual satisfaction,” presenting on data exploring links between genital self-image and individuals’ sexual satisfaction and their perceptions of their partners’ sexual satisfaction. 🌟 Congratulations Simone, we are so proud!

💫 This week, we attended the 49th annual conference of the International Academy of Sex Research in Montréal! We have six incredible lab members who presented this year, on topics including: 🍆 Genital self-image💭 Memory of one’s first time🤔 Mind-wandering and sex💑 Perinatal sexuality💦 Pleasure👩‍🏫 Sex education📱 Technology-facilitated sexual violence Swipe through to see all the amazing presentations from our lab members 💫

📢 We published in @theconversationdotcom! 💬 Check out our article “What to expect when you’re expecting: How will your sex life change during pregnancy and postpartum?”. https://theconversation.com/what-to-expect-when-youre-expecting-how-will-your-sex-life-change-during-pregnancy-and-postpartum-208553 👩🏽‍⚕️ In this article, written for a lay audience, we discuss changes to couples’ sexual well-being across the transition to parenthood, summarize some recent research on this topic from our team, @cashlab, and others, […]

🎉 Join us in congratulating Marta on becoming the latest Master of Sex (Research)! 🎓 🌟 We are thrilled to celebrate her successful defense of her master’s thesis, titled “Comparing Associations between Sexual Function, Sexual Distress, and Psychological Symptoms in Women with and without Sexual Function Difficulties.” 📚✨ Marta’s ground-breaking research sheds light on the intricate connections between sexual function, distress, and psychological well-being in women using network analysis. 🥂 […]

We are very excited to share that two SWell lab members won People’s Choice Poster Awards at the Women’s+ Health Trainee Research Conference last month! 🏆 MA student Erin Fitzpatrick presented “Bedtime battles and bedroom bliss: Infant temperament and sleep are linked with new parent couples’ sexual and romantic relationships”! 🏆 Honorary SWell lab grad student Vasia Karasavva presented “Image-based sexual abuse as a form of gendered violence”!Woohoo Erin and Vasia, so well deserved!

On June 24, our Lab Director, Dr. Samantha Dawson, was awarded with the CPA President’s New Researcher Award! 🌟🏆 🌟 On June 24, 2023, our marvelous Lab Director, Dr. Samantha Dawson, will be honored with the esteemed Canadian Psychological Association’s President’s New Researcher Award for her compelling research on identifying risk and protective factors contributing to individuals’ and couples’ sexual health and well-being! 🌟🏆 🌟 This prestigious recognition is a testament to Dr. Dawson’s […]

🌟 We are thrilled to announce two recent awards from the Society for Sex Therapy and Research @sstarsociety received by current and former grad students in the lab. 🌟 💫 First year MA student, Kiarah O’Kane, won best student poster for their work examining sexual myth endorsement and knowledge sharing via @misconsexions with @thephaselab. 💫 Former MA student, Sonia Milani, won best empirical poster for her MA research in the lab focused on validating a novel online alternative to eye tracking for sex research. 💫 Congrats Kiarah […]

The UBC Womens+ Health Trainee Research Conference took place virtually on June 14th, from 9 am to 12:30 pm! It was a multidisciplinary conference, providing an opportunity for trainees in women’s+ health research to showcase their work. We had 3 lab members representing the SWell lab! ⏰ Erin found that parents’ reports of greater difficulty caring for and soothing their child, as well as poorer infant sleep quality, were each linked with poorer sexual […]

It was that time of the year again! We invited everyone to join us for the second annual BC Sexual Health Networking Event, co-hosted by UBC Sexual Health Research (@ubcshr), the Psychology, Health, and Sexuality Lab (@thephaselab), and the SWell Lab! EIGHT of our incredible team members presented at this year’s event, with topics covering: 🧑‍❤️‍🧑 Self-compassion and couples’ sexuality💦 Sexual pleasure🔥 Sexual […]

🏆Our amazing Lab Director, Dr. Samantha Dawson, received the Early Career Researcher Lectureship Award from the Canadian National Perinatal Research Meeting, May 23-26, 2023 in Montebello, Quebec. 👩‍🍼This nominated award recognizes Dr. Dawson as one of the most prominent early career researchers in perinatal health in Canada. She will travel to Quebec to present her program of research on perinatal sexuality on May 25th, 2023. This work would not be possible without her incredible collaborator and mentor Dr. Natalie Rosen (@cashlab), as […]

🌟 Exciting Announcement! 🌟 Grad student, Kiarah, competed in the Western Regional Final of the prestigious 3MT competition! In 2020, Kiarah provided insights from the initial study conducted by @swell.lab, offering intriguing findings on the endorsement of sexuality myths. The data presented shed light on various aspects, such as identifying individuals who are more inclined to endorse these myths about sex and exploring the connections between myth endorsement and outcomes related to sexuality […]

Three of our amazing graduate students presented at the Society for Sex Therapy & Research’s (SSTAR) 48th Annual Hybrid Meeting! Our very own PI, Dr. Samantha Dawson is the scientific co-chair for this year’s conference alongside Dr. Kristen Mark! Here is a little sneak-peek into the research we presented: ⭐️ Marta T. Kolbuszewska, BA (she/her): We examined associations between facets of sexual function, sexual distress, and psychological symptoms in women with and without sexual function […]

Five of our brilliant lab members presented at the 25th Annual UBC Psychology Undergraduate Research Conference (PURC) on March 31st and April 1st! Here are some brief descriptions of the research we presented: Maya: In a dyadic study with data from three timepoints in the pregnancy and postpartum periods, we examined links between an individuals’ own body image self-consciousness with their own and their partners’ sexual frequency, sexual satisfaction, and sexual distress. Elena: This study examined if memories […]

Clinical Psychology MA1 student, Kiarah O’Kane, came in FIRST place 🥇 at the 2023 UBC 3MT competition! Kiarah shared data from the very first @swell.lab study that launched in 2020! They presented fascinating data on sexuality myth endorsement, including who is most likely to endorse myths about sex and links between myth endorsement and sexual and relational outcomes. Kia will be off to the Western Regional Competition in May at the University […]

Celebrating the success of our brilliant honours student, Maya, at the Multidisciplinary Undergraduate Research Conference (MURC)! Our 4th year honours student, Maya shared her thesis results at the conference on March 18, 2023.  Here’s a brief description of the research she presented: Maya’s thesis used data from a dyadic longitudinal study of first-time parent couples. Her thesis examined whether an individuals’ greater body image self-consciousness during sex is linked with their […]

To end 2022, we wanted to recap all the incredible research related accomplishments by our incredible SWell Lab team! A huge thank you to the 16k+ participants who volunteered to be part of our studies and contribute to sexuality science. We could not have done it without you! We are so fortunate to have our research and our students supported so generously this past year by a variety of funding sources. This work would […]

HUGE congratulations to MA student, Simone Goldberg, for receiving the Canadian Psychological Association Certificate of Academic Excellence for her undergraduate honours thesis! Simone’s thesis was titled: The impacts of a brief psycho-educational video intervention on body image, genital self-image, and sexual well-being. This award recognizes outstanding achievements by students in Canadian departments of psychology. Simone, you’re a superstar!! 🤩 We’re so proud of you ✨

The Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS) came to the lab’s hometown of Vancouver for their annual conference! Here is what we presented: Grad student Simone presented a poster examining emotional competence as a predictor of sexual well-being. Our lab director, Dr. Samantha Dawson, gave an oral presentation on a brief online intervention for sexual well-being. Grad student Marta gave an oral presentation on a network analysis of core symptoms of male sexual […]

We are very excited to announce that our grad student Erin Fitzpatrick won Best Data Blitz Presentation – Runner-up at this year’s CSRF in Waterloo! Erin gave a 5-minute talk entitled “Body image self-consciousness as a risk factor for sexual function problems: A longitudinal analysis of pregnant couples”. Congratulations, Erin 🤩 We could not be prouder!

Huge thank you to the Canadian Foundation for Innovation and the BC Knowledge Development Fund! Thanks to the Canadian Foundation for Innovation and the BC Knowledge Development Fund, Dr. Dawson and her team are getting a renovated lab space where they will have access to one-of-a-kind psychophysiology and observation infrastructure. This new space and equipment will allow Dr. Dawson and her team to conduct cutting-edge science to better understand factors […]

CGSHE presents a World Sexual Health Day Lunch & Learn with Dr. Samantha Dawson, CGSHE and UBC Psychology faculty member and Director of the Sexual Well-being (SWELL) Lab at the University of British Columbia. Aligned with WSHD 2022’s theme, Let’s Talk Pleasure, Dr. Dawson will discuss current research on sexual health and pleasure conducted by the SWELL Lab, including the Instagram mythbusting campaign, MisconSEXions! For a link to the recording of the talk click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Jo60posxkc&t=174s

Huge achievement by MA1 student Erin for winning Best Student Poster (2nd Place) and incoming postdoctoral fellow, Inês Tavares, on receiving a Student Research Development Award! MA1 student superstar Erin Fitzpatrick won Best Student Poster (2nd place) at the 48th Annual Meeting of the International Academy of Sex Research in Reykjavík Iceland. Incoming postdoctoral fellow, Inês Tavares, received a Student Research Development Award to support her research on sexual well-being in the transition to parenthood. Congrats to these two rising stars!

SWell Lab takes on the 48th Annual Meeting of the International Academy of Sex Research in Reykjavík Iceland from July 6-9, 2022. All three graduate students did an incredible job presenting some of their latest research! Our Lab Director, Dr. Dawson, presented a poster with student co-authors, Greta and Simone. Their poster was about a brief online intervention for sexual well-being. Newly minted PhD Student, Sonia, presented her Master’s thesis work on validating MouseView, an online alternative […]

Congratulations to Sonia, SWell Lab’s first graduate student, on successfully defending her MA thesis! On June 28th we got to celebrate BIG when SWell Lab’s first graduate student—Sonia Milani—successfully defended her MA thesis entitled: Validation of MouseView.js as an online alternative to eye-tracking in sex research. Not only did Sonia give a stellar presentation, she also demonstrated her wealth of knowledge in the defense component! Well done Sonia, we […]

Huge congratulations to grad student Erin for winning best poster at the Canadian National Perinatal Research Meeting for Perinatal Mental Health! Erin won BEST POSTER for her research on situating sexual education as a missing link in perinatal health care! We are very proud!

SWell Lab Director, Dr. Samantha Dawson, is hosting a perinatal sexual health working group today as part of the Canadian National Perinatal Research Meeting! She is excited to connect with other perinatal mental health researchers and clinicians to share some of our research and hopefully inspire them to start thinking about sexual health in their work!

Two of our star lab members will be presenting at the Canadian National Perinatal Research Meeting! Graduate student Erin Fitzpatrick, and Co-Op student, Gwen Farm will be presenting posters tomorrow, June 2nd, at the Canadian National Perinatal Research Meeting for the Perinatal Mental Health Poster Session! – Erin will be presenting on situating sexual education as a missing link in perinatal health care. – Gwen will be presenting on how self-compassion […]

It’s networking time! The SWell lab had a fantastic time hearing from folks in the field of sexuality in the Lower Mainland! This Friday on May 27, UBC Sexual Health Research hosted the first ever Sexual Health Networking Event! The event featured presentations from folks from the fields of sex therapy, physiotherapy, medicine, and research and offered opportunities to get to connect and know one another! ✨ Our brilliant lab director, Dr. Samantha Dawson, discussed the amazing […]

Our star students are presenting at SSTAR this year! We have one poster, one oral blitz, and one symposium talk on the roster. ✨ Honours student Greta will be giving a 12-minute symposium talk on her investigation into a brief online psychoeducational intervention to bolster sexual well-being. You may be surprised by the results! ✨ Grad student Marta will be presenting a poster at […]

Honours thesis student—Simone Goldberg—was recently recognized for her extraordinary leadership within the Faculty of Arts community. Read more about this recognition here: https://psych.ubc.ca/news/student-leaders-class-of-2022/. Woohoo Simone!!!

Come see our star students shine this year at the 24th Annual UBC Psychology Undergraduate Research Conference (PURC)! PURC’s mission is to provide a professional environment for undergraduate researchers to showcase their work, gain experience in presenting at conferences, and contribute to the scientific community. On Friday, Simone will be presenting her research on the impacts of a brief psychoeducational video intervention on body image. On Saturday, Lara will present her research on […]

Three of our star students are presenting their work at this year’s Multidisciplinary Undergraduate Research Conference (MURC)! Any UBC undergraduate student who is participating in, or has completed, their own UBC Faculty-supervised research project can apply to present at Multidisciplinary Undergraduate Research Conference (MURC). Gwen’s presentation is all about how sexual script flexibility promotes sexual well-being in first-time pregnant couples. It takes place on Saturday, March 19th in the 3:45–5 pm slot. Greta’s […]

Our grad student Erin Fitzpatrick presented her poster March 9th at the WHRI’s Seventh Annual Women’s Health Research Symposium Erin presented on her poster “Let’s talk about sex: A comprehensive evaluation of sexual education in perinatal health care”! The theme of this year’s event, From Cell to Society: Women’s Health Research to Address Shared Global Challenges, will centre on catalyzing women’s health research to address shared global health challenges with an emphasis on the […]

Our own Dr. Samantha Dawson is one of the 10+ expert speakers at the Sexual Health Alliance’s Keeping the Spark Alive online summit! In her talk, Dr. Dawson shared her latest research from the last several years focused on understanding factors that influence couples’ sexuality during the transition to parenthood. Attendees learned about what information expectant and new parent couples want to know regarding changes to their sexuality, how sexuality changes during this transition, whether some individuals or […]

Have some research you’d like to share? We can share it for you!   Done any interesting sex research lately? We’d like to showcase the amazing science you are doing! Fill out this form and we will feature it on our Instagram page @swell.lab: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1bA38U794wEDulWoR8C9r6Z1NWfmh5rQHQWejE8BriKk

Check out what SWell Lab accomplished in our inaugural year! To start the new year, we wanted to recap our inaugural year of research at UBC. (click on the infographic below) Even though research has been more challenging this past year, we’ve been surprisingly productive. A big thank you to our participants for aiding in our research and to our dedicated lab members for all their […]

Our first annual SWell holiday party happened on Friday at Koerner’s Pub at UBC! We enjoyed tacos and burgers, drinks, and a Yankee gift swap, where everyone brought a wrapped sex-related book which we got to open or steal. Some of the juicy titles included The Vagina Bible, Come As You Are, and Sex at Dawn. A couple of people from our team were missing, but a great time […]

Student superstars Marta and Greta took first and third place for best oral presentations! We are over the moon that first-year grad student Marta Kolbuszewska won first place for her talk on postpartum sexual desire and undergraduate Greta Jang won 3rd place for her talk on bolstering sexual well-being through psychoeducation at the WHRC Tri-Cluster Research Day!

It’s research time, again! This time we are presenting our work at the WHRC Tri-Cluster Research Day! Three lab members—Erin, Greta, and Marta—are presenting their latest research tomorrow between 9am and noon as part of the WHRC Tri-cluster research day – The Future of Health. All of their abstracts were selected to be in the top 10, which means they are each giving lightning talks between 10am and 11am. Come check them […]

The SWell lab had an amazing time hearing the latest sexuality science at the annual meeting of the Canadian Sex Research Forum! Five lab members—Erin, Kiarah, Lara, Marta, and Sonia—presented their amazing work including new ways to assess attention, factors affecting perinatal sexual well-being, and myths related to sexuality. Natasha was instrumental in coordinating all of the technology. Dr. Dawson taught people how to make Palomas at the mix and mingle and led a roundtable discussion about […]

Our very own grad student Erin Fitzpatrick was elected to be the new Junior Student Rep for CSRF! Erin will serve for two years (one year as Junior Student Rep and one year as Senior Student Rep) on the CSRF executive council and and will be a voice for CSRF student members to ensure that they are being represented. We are very fortunate to have Erin in our corner!

Our amazing grad student Sonia Milani won her third award in a row this year! We are very pleased to announce that our amazing grad student Sonia Milani has just won her third award in a row this year! She won Best Data Blitz at CSRF 2021 for her 5-minute presentation entitled “Establishing the utility of a novel online paradigm to assess attentional processing of sexual stimuli.” It was all about […]

Warm welcome to Simone and welcome back to Lara! The SWell Lab is excited to have a new honours student join the lab this year—Simone Goldberg—and to welcome back Lara Radovic who is back in the lab to do her 4th year honours thesis! Learn more about Simone here and Lara here.

MASSIVE Congratulations to Dr. Samantha Dawson who was recognized as one of 32 exceptional BC-based health researchers as 2021 Scholar award recipients! This award will protect Dr. Dawson’s research time for the next five years. Read about the work this award is supporting here.

The SWell Lab is thrilled to have Yana Svatko join the team! Our lab is growing and thrilled to welcome Yana Svatko to the team. Yana is a UBC graduate who has been researching various aspects of human sexuality since 2017. Welcome Yana! Learn more about our newest team member here!

A warm welcome to two new graduate students in the SWell Lab—Erin and Marta! The SWell Lab is very excited to welcome two new graduate students to the lab all the way from Halifax and Ottawa! Also, HUGE congratulations to both Erin and Marta for being awarded prestigious and highly competitive Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarships. Read more about Erin here and Marta […]

Amazing presentations by Anthony, Kiarah, and Sonia at the WHRI Sexual Health Day Research Conference! In honour of World Sexual Health Day, three of our amazing lab members—Anthony, Kiarah, and Sonia— presented some of our latest sexuality science as part of the WHRI Sexual Health Day Research conference. For full details see here. Check out the talks here!

Celebration time for Sonia Milani! Sonia received the 2021 Student Research Development Award from the International Academy of Sex Research! This SRDA ($1000 USD) will be used for a validation study of a new online alternative to eye-tracking called MouseView. Congrats Sonia!

Our VERY FIRST Swell Lab publication is out, led by our VERY FIRST graduate student Sonia Milani!  In this invited review, we summarized the current science examining links between attentional processing of sexual stimuli and sexual function in women. The literature suggests that women with and without sexual dysfunction are similar, in that both groups tend to look more at sexual images compared to non-sexual images. Interestingly, women with and without sexual […]

Congratulations to undergraduate student Anthony Yuen who was recently awarded a competitive Summer Student Research Program Award from UBC Faculty of Medicine. Anthony will be working with Dr. David Moore on the following project: “Attitudes of gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBM) towards methamphetamine use and relation to reducing methamphetamine use in three Canadian cities”.

BIG BIG BIG CONGRATULATIONS to graduate student, Sonia Milani, who recently received the prestigious MAP Education & Research Foundation’s Sexual Tipping Point Award. This award was presented at the recent Society for Sex Therapy and Research conference in recognition of Sonia’s excellent talk entitled “It’s better to focus on the positive: Links between attention to sexual cues during sex and sexual desire among expectant parents”. The award recognizes cutting-edge research that is most consistent with the Foundation’s Biomedical-Psychosocial […]

New Research: How does common dyadic coping—how couples jointly cope with a shared stressor like a baby—relate to how new parent couples manage worries and concerns about their sexuality postpartum? Dr. Dawson and her colleagues at Dalhousie University recently published a study to answer this question. Tutelman, P. R., Dawson, S. J., Schwenck, G. C., & Rosen, N. O. (in press). A Longitudinal Examination of Common Dyadic Coping and Sexual Distress in New Parent Couples during the Transition to Parenthood. Family Process.   New parents often experience significant changes to their sexual relationships following the birth of a baby, such as having […]

A warm welcome to our awesome new lab members who have recently joined us as work learn students or volunteers. Welcome Tianqi, Lior, Ellen, Stephanie, and Natasha! Learn more about our new members here. We are so excited to have you join our team!

Congratulations to our honours student Lara Radovic on her recent A+ honours thesis! Lara has secured two fantastic research positions for the summer. The first is a summer studentship at the BC Children’s Hospital Provincial Eating Disorders program. The second is as a research assistant in the Perinatal Anxiety Research Lab! Go Lara!

Huge congratulations to Dr. Samantha Dawson who received a NSERC Discovery Grant with an Early Career Supplement and Discovery Launch Supplement! This funding will be used for cutting edge sexuality science examining attentional mechanisms underlying gendered sexual response over the next 5 years.

Lab manager, Leor Elizur, spoke on a podcast! SWell Lab Manager, Leor Elizur, was recently featured on a UBC Equity and Diversity Podcast, Love in Public, to talk about her UBC journal club Intersectional Perspectives in Psychology which focuses on intersectional research in the field of psychology and the importance of incorporating social justice into research. To learn more about the journal club, […]

Congratulations to Dr. Dawson! Dr. Dawson was recently awarded a SSHRC Explore Grant to conduct a study examining factors associated with couples’ daily well-being in pregnancy. She was also awarded an Arts Undergraduate Research Award to support the social media knowledge translation initiative—MisconSEXions.

Congrats to Greta Jang who recently received a Quinn Undergraduate Research Assistantship Award!!! This competitive award will support Greta as she works on a number of different projects in the lab. We are thrilled that we get to continue to have Greta as a valued member of the SWell team this summer.

Congratulations to Leor Elizur! The SWell Lab Manager, Leor Elizur, will be starting an MA in Counselling Psychology at UBC in the fall of 2021. Congrats, Leor!

SWell Lab Director—Dr. Dawson—recently chatted with Gloria Macarenko about sex and relationships during COVID on CBC Vancouver Radio. Check it out here: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-46-on-the-coast/clip/15824347-lovelines-sex-covid-19

Congratulations to Priyam Joshi! We are excited to announce that SWell Lab Research Assistant—Priyam Joshi—has accepted a position in the dual degree (Master of Public Health in Health Promotion and Behaviour and a PhD in Community Psychology) program at Georgia State University to start in the fall of 2021. We will be sad to see her go, but are […]

New Research: Ever wonder if people have certain sexual interests and never act on them or even participate in certain sexual activities even when they aren’t interested in them? Dr. Dawson and her colleagues at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre and Queen’s University recently published a study to answer this question. Seto, M. C., Curry, S., Dawson, S. J., Bradford, J., & Chivers, M. L. (in press). Concordance of Paraphilic Interests and Behaviors. Journal of Sex Research. In this study, we sampled 1036 men and women and asked them about their sexual interest in 13 different paraphilias (e.g., sadism, masochism, pedophilia), as well as whether or […]

New Research: Do postpartum depressive symptoms and postpartum sexual concerns influence one another? Dr. Dawson and her colleagues at Dalhousie University recently published a study to answer this question. Dawson, S. J., Strickland, N, & Rosen, N. O. (in press). Longitudinal Associations between Depressive Symptoms and Postpartum Sexual Concerns Among First-time Parent Couples. Journal of Sex Research. Many new parents experience novel concerns about their sexuality after they have a baby, including worries about the effects of labor and delivery on their sex lives, […]

New Funding Dr. Dawson receives a UBC Hampton Emerging Scholar Grant to fund an exciting new study that will examine how to bolster sexual well-being through a brief psychoeducational intervention.

First Lab Get-Together! The SWell Lab had our first social distanced get-together. Here is our amazing team!

New Research: Sexual well-being often changes over the course of romantic relationships and can differ between romantic partners, but are these changes unique to the transition to parenthood or do all couples experience these declines? Dr. Dawson and her colleagues at Dalhousie University and York University recently published a study to answer these questions. Schwenck, G. C., Dawson, S. J., Muise, A., & Rosen, N. O. (in press). A Comparison of the Sexual Well-Being of New Parents With Community Couples. The Journal of Sexual Medicine. In this paper we compared the sexual well-being—sexual frequency, sexual satisfaction, sexual desire, sexual distress—of first-time mothers and their partners (n = 99) to a […]

New Research: What do changes to couples’ sexual well-being look like during the transition to parenthood? And does this look the same for everyone? Dr. Dawson and her colleagues at Dalhousie University and the University of Toronto recently published a study to answer these questions. Rosen, N. O.,* Dawson, S. J.,* Leonhardt, N. D., Vannier, S. A., & Impett, E. A. (in press). Trajectories of sexual well-being among couples in the transition to parenthood. Journal of Family Psychology. * denotes shared first-authorship. In this paper, we sampled 203 first-time parent couples and sought to establish unique classes of trajectories at the […]

A warm welcome to SWell Lab’s first graduate student, Sonia Milani! The SWell Lab is very excited to welcome our very first graduate student, Sonia Milani, to the lab! Also HUGE congratulations to Sonia for being awarded a prestigious and highly competitive Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship, a UBC Graduate Entrance Scholarship, and a tuition award for her MA. Read […]

Dr. Samantha Dawson is ready to tackle important sexual health questions and make an impact After a cross country academic journey, Dr. Samantha Dawson joins UBC Psychology as assistant professor in the clinical area. Dr. Dawson’s research focuses on informing better sexual health education and developing interventions for individuals and couples. As the field of sexuality research is still growing, she is interested in exploring this topic further and making an impact. […]