Kelly Babchishin

Dr. Babchishin will be joining the Department on January 1, 2022.

Kelly M. Babchishin is an Assistant Professor of forensic psychology within the Department of Psychology. After completing her Ph.D. (experimental psychology, Carleton University), Kelly completed a Banting postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute of Mental Health Research (Ottawa) and the Karolinska Institute Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Stockholm; 2013-2017). Prior to starting at Carleton, Kelly was a research advisor at Public Safety Canada (2017-2019) and the Parole Board of Canada (2019-2021) where she conducted research to facilitate evidence-based policies for justice-involved individuals within Canada.

Kelly is the director of the Sexually Harmful Behaviour Research Lab. In the lab, we use an epidemiological and socioecological framework to provide novel information on factors involved in the development and maintenance of sexually harmful behaviours with the ultimate goal of improving prevention efforts. The research we conduct strives to examine all systems of influences and uses population-based, family-based, cohort, and convenience sampling strategies. We also harness the latest methodological and statistical developments, and use both quantitative and qualitative approaches.

Ongoing research projects involves: (1) incest and sexual behaviours between siblings, (2) online sexual offending, (3) causal candidates for sexual offending, (4) sexting and the non-consensual sharing of sexual materials, and (5) risk assessment.

More information on Kelly’s research can be found on her lab’s website.

Interested in supervision, volunteering, or research assistantships? Students interested in supervision (theses, independent research projects), volunteering in the lab, or paid research assistantships are encouraged to contact Kelly with a short explanation of their research interests and their CV. Kelly is accepting undergraduate and graduate students for Fall 2022.

Selected Publications (students/trainees are italicized)

Babchishin, K. M., & Hanson, R. K. (2020). Monitoring changes in risk of reoffending: A prospective study of 632 men on community supervision. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 88, 886–898. https://doi.org/10.1037/ccp0000601

Martijn, F. M., Babchishin, K. M., Pullman, L. E., & Seto, M. C. (2020). Sexual attraction and falling in love in persons with pedohebephilia. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 49, 1305–1318. doi: 10.1007/s10508-019-01579-9

Aelick, C. A., Babchishin, K. M., & Harris, A. J. R. (2020). Severe mental illness diagnoses and their association with reoffending in a sample of men adjudicated for sexual offences. Sexual Offending: Theory, Research, and Prevention, 15 (1), e3123. doi: 10.5964/sotrap.3123.

Babchishin, K. M., Seto, M. C., Fazel, S., Långström, N. (2019). Are there early risk markers for pedophilia? A nationwide case-control study of child sexual exploitation material offenders. Journal of Sex Research, 56, 203-212.  doi: 10.1080/00224499.2018.1492694.

Babchishin, K. M, Merdian, H. L., Bartels, R. M., & Perkins, D. (2018). Child Sexual Exploitation Materials: A review. European Psychologist, 23, 130-143. doi: 10.1027/1016-9040/a000326

Babchishin, K. M., & Helmus, M. L. (2016). The influence of base rates on correlations: An evaluation of proposed alternative effect sizes with real-world data. Behavior Research Methods, 48, 1021-1031. doi: 10.3758/s13428-015-0627-7