Merek Zimmerman (He/Him)

After dealing with chronic pain in his childhood, the topics of how pain can influence both the child and the parent is an area of great interest to him. During this time, he also had a first-hand experience with how psychology and pain come together, sparking his interest in the field. He would like to continue to focus on the effects of pediatric pain as he moves through undergraduate studies, with goals of eventually becoming a clinical psychologist.

As a recipient of the PURE Summer Studentship, Merek examined how parental disturbed sleep and protective parenting behaviours are related to pediatric chronic pain, and continued to examine parent sleep, parent mental health and child chronic pain in his Honours thesis with Dr. Noel and Dr. Sabine Soltani.