Sila Demir

I am a Social Psychologist (PhD) with over 10 years of experience in public health, traffic, and safety research. My work focuses on understanding and improving human behaviour in social contexts to enhance public health outcomes and traffic safety measures. I am committed to leveraging my expertise to drive impactful research and implement effective solutions.

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, ON

Projects

• “Deterring mobile phone use while driving: Systematic intervention design” 
  • Funding Agency: Ministry of Transportation, Ontario
• Driving Under the Influence of Cannabis: Relating Roadside Enforcement Strategies to Demonstrated Driver Impairment.
  • Funding Agency: Ministry of Transportation, Ontario
• “Gender‐specific mental health priorities in Ontario medical students:

  Identifying opportunities to improve women’s mental health and treatment among medical trainees”

  • Funding Agency: womenmindTM
• “Social Media Use and Mental Health: Exploration at the Population-Level”
  • Funding Agency: CAMH Foundation: Caskey/Francis Family Award in Clinical Research
• “Latent class analyses of driving after substance use in Ontario, Canada: Investigation of general population, student drivers and drivers who use cannabis” 
  • Funding Agency: The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK)

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Final International University, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

Lecturer, Department of Psychology, Ipek University, Turkey

Research Assistant, Middle East Technical University, Turkey

Social Psychology, PhD, Middle East Technical University, 2017

• Dissertation Title: “Social Comparison as a Determinant of Self-Presentation”
• Focus: Social influence, interpersonal processes, individual differences.

• Thesis Title: “Promoting Organ Donation through Mortality Salience for Different Levels and Orientations of Religiosity”
• Focus: Health communication, persuasion, implementation of intervention.

• Research Assistantship (2010-2012): Early childhood enrichment project of Professor Cigdem Kagitcibasi; responsible for reviewing the existing intervention programs, determining the problem behaviours to be targeted and the positive behaviours to be strengthened, designing and pilot testing of a 14-week intervention program for 6th-7th graders in psychological counselling sessions.
• University of California, Berkeley, Research Assistantship (Summer 2011): Relationships and Social Cognition Lab of Professor Ozlem Ayduk; responsible for assisting data collection in an experimental study of a rejection sensitivity project. 
• Stanford University, Stanford Summer International Honors Program (Summer 2010)