Louise Staring

Louise Staring is a PhD student at the Psychology department at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). She graduated from her master’s degree in clinical psychology, with specialization in biological psychology at VUB (2019, magna cum laude) and is funded by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO aspirant fundamental research).

Her research interests lie in the importance of early life experiences for development, and specifically the importance of interpersonal, affiliative touch for psychosocial well-being. Her PhD project focuses on the importance of affiliative touch in the early psychophysiological development of infants and the parent-infant relationship. She is also part of the Brain, Body, and Cognition research group (BBCO, VUB) and is collaborates with Liverpool John Moores University (SomAffect, Somatosensory & Affective Neuroscience Group) and Technische Universität Dresden (Chair of Acoustics and Haptics).