Hi, I'm Jaweria!

(pronounced Ja-where-ya)

I’m a social psychologist in training and science communicator passionate about exploring how emotions connect us. I'm currently a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto, (supervisor: Dr. Jennifer Stellar). Beyond my research, I enjoy teaching, mentoring, and turning science into art through writing, public talks, and creative projects. In all my work, I aim to make research accessible, engaging, and human-centered, inviting others to see research as something to learn from, feel, and share.

I research emotions, prosociality, & morality.

I take a basic science approach to understanding how we experience emotions, how we perceive them in others, and how they shape our relationships using psychophysiological methods. I translate my research into clear, compelling narratives that have been published in Affective Science and recognized nationally by SSHRC. My research centers on three interconnected questions:

1. Compassion experience: Compassion is critical to supporting and helping others. I am interested in exploring the psychological experience of compassion, understanding when and why we feel it, and identifying barriers to its experience. For example, I investigated the phenomenon of compassion fatigue.
2. Emotion perception: Emotion perception is fundamental to social interaction and empathy. I am interested in how people perceive emotions in others and in groups, and the processes that support or constrain emotion sharing and understanding. For example, I have examined physiological sharing between dyads and accuracy in group emotion recognition.
3. Empathy & morality: Empathy plays a central role in moral judgment and prosocial behavior. I am interested in how empathic processes shape moral decision-making, motivate helping, and influence how people respond to others.

I teach psychology as a participatory and inclusive practice.

I design inclusive, inquiry-driven learning environments that connect theory to lived experience. Across psychology, psychophysiology, and data science, my teaching emphasizes hands-on engagement, dialogue, and accessibility in classrooms and workshops with high school and university students.

I'm passionate about turning research into art.

Through visual storytelling and multimedia projects, I explore new ways of making psychological science feel personal and digestable. My creative work bridges the gap between data and lived experience, showing that science isn’t just something to read—it’s something to see, feel, and share.