LAB MEMBERS & ALUMNI

Dr. Dale Stack

Ph.D., Psychology
Queen's University

In Memoriam

Dr. Dale Stack was a leading developmental psychologist whose work profoundly advanced our understanding of child development, parent-child relationships, and emotional competence. Throughout her distinguished career, she served as Professor and esteemed clinical supervisor in the Department of Psychology at Concordia University, Member of the Centre for Research in Human Development, Principal Investigator for the Emotional Competence Team (FRQ-SC), Researcher with the Promoting Relationships & Eliminating Violence Network (PREVNet), Clinical Psychologist at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, and Director of the Infant and Child Studies Laboratory.

Dr. Stack's research transformed our understanding of the developmental pathways of infants and children across both typical and at-risk populations. Her work explored parent-child relationships, emotional competence, self-regulation, parenting practices, and family functioning, with a particular focus on the factors that promote resilience and positive developmental outcomes. Through influential studies of mother-infant interaction (Jean, Stack, & Fogel, 2009; Moszkowski, Stack, & Chiarella, 2009), she helped establish touch, gesture, and other forms of nonverbal communication as central mechanisms in early socio-emotional development. Her research also illuminated how adversity and family psychosocial risk shape children's well-being across generations, including through landmark work examining emotional availability in intergenerational longitudinal samples (Stack et al., 2012).

As the founder and Director of the Infant and Child Studies Laboratory, Dr. Stack cultivated a vibrant and collaborative research environment dedicated to understanding the factors that support healthy child development and family well-being. She was an exceptional mentor, educator, and clinician whose generosity, curiosity, and commitment to scientific excellence inspired generations of students, trainees, and colleagues.

United by a commitment to fostering healthy relationships, adaptive development, and emotional well-being, Dr. Stack's scholarship and mentorship leave an enduring legacy that continues to shape research, clinical practice, and the lives of those who had the privilege of working alongside her.