Victoria (she/her/hers) is interested in how memories of our personal past influence self-schemas and mental health. She is supervised by Dr. Daniela Palombo in the Memory and Imagination Lab.

Memory, emotion, trauma, childhood adversity, self-schema

1. Wardell, V., & Palombo, D.J. (under review). Negative emotion places a boundary on memory malleability. Emotion.
2. Rho, K.H., Bains, J.S., Wardell, V., Rights, J.D., Palombo, D.J., Kerns, C.M. (under revision). Examining the mediating role of adverse childhood experiences and social exclusion on the association of autistic traits and anxiety in young adults. Research in Autism.
3. Wardell, V., Jameson, T., St. Jacques, P. L., Madan, C. R., & Palombo, D.J. (2025). Assessing autobiographical memory consistency: Machine and human approaches. Behavior Research Methods, 57, 163. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-025-02690-7
4. Wardell, V., Rho, K.H., Stewardson, C.I., Hunsche, M.C., Rights, J.D., LeMoult, J., Palombo, D.J., & Kerns, C.M. (2024). Childhood adversity is not related to associative memory for emotional stimuli. Clinical Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/21677026241306048
5. Dudarev, V., Wardell, V., Enns, J.T., Kerns, C.M., Palombo, D.J. (2024). Social cues tip the scales in emotional processing of complex pictures. Psychological Research, 88, 2221-2233. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-024-02022-y
6. Wardell, V., Stewardson, C.I., Hunsche, M.C., Chen, F.S., Rights, J.D., Palombo, D.J., & Kerns, C.M. (2024). Are autistic traits associated with a social-emotional memory bias?. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 180, 104578. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2024.104578
7. Wardell, V., & Palombo, D. (2024). Stability and malleability of emotional autobiographical memories. Nature Reviews Psychology, 3(6), 393-406. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-024-00312-1
8. Petrucci, A.S., McCall, C. Schofield, G., Wardell, V., Safi, O.K., & Palombo, D.J. (2024) The relationship between environmentally induced emotion and memory for a naturalistic virtual experience. Cognition and Emotion. Online. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2024.2333067
9. Picon, E.L., Wardell, V., Palombo, D.J., Todd, R.M., Aziz, B., Bedi, S., & Silverberg, N.D. (2023). Factors perpetuating functional cognitive symptoms after mild traumatic brain injury. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology. 45(10), 988-1002. https://doi.org/10.1080/13803395.2023.2247601
10. Wardell, V., Jameson, T.J., Bontkes, O.J.R., Le, M.L., Duan, T., St. Jacques, P.L., Madan, C.R., Palombo, D.J. (2023). Fade in, fade out: Do shifts in visual perspective predict the consistency of real-world memories?. Psychological Science. OnlineFirst. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976231180588
11. Stewardson, C.I., Hunsche, M.C., Wardell, V., Palombo, D.J., Kerns, C.M. (2022). Episodic memory through a social and emotional lens. Emotion. 23(4), 961-972. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001147
12. Wardell, V., Grilli, M.D., Palombo, D.J. (2022). Simulating the best and worst of times: The powers and perils of emotional simulation. Memory, 30(8). 1212-1225. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2022.2088796
13. Dev, D.K.*, Wardell, V.*, Checknita, K.J., Te, A.A., Petrucci, A.S., Le, M.L., Madan, C.R., Palombo, D.J. (2022). Negative emotion enhances memory for the sequential unfolding of a naturalistic experience. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/mac0000015
14. Rioux, M., Wardell, V., Palombo, D. J., Picon, E. L., Le, M. L., & Silverberg, N. D. (2022). Memory for forgetting in adults with persistent symptoms following concussion. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 44(1), 19-30. https://doi.org/10.1080/13803395.2022.2067326
15. Ng-Cordell, E., Wardell, V., Stewardson, C.I., Kerns, C.M. (2022). Anxiety and Trauma-Related Disorders in Children on the Autism Spectrum. Current Psychiatry Reports, 24, 171-180. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-022-01331-6
16. Hurd, L., Mahal, R., Wardell, V., Liang, J. (2022). “There were no words”: Older LGBTQ+ persons’ experiences of finding and claiming their gender and sexual identities. Journal of Aging Studies, 60, 100999. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2022.100999
17. Wardell, V., Madan., C.R., Jameson, T. J., Cocquyt, C., Checknita, K.J., Liu, H., & Palombo, D.J. (2021). How emotion influences the details recalled in autobiographical memory. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 35(6), 1454-1465. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3877
18. Wardell, V., Esposito, C.L., Madan, C.R., Palombo, D.J. (2021). Semi-automated transcription and scoring of autobiographical memory narratives. Behavioral Research Methods, 53, 507–517. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-020-01437-w

* authors contributed equally

• Travel Graduate Award University of British Columbia, Department of Psychology (2025)
• Graduate Student Travel Award, University of British Columbia (2025)
• President’s Academic Excellence Initiative PhD Award, University of British Columbia (2024)
• Dean of Arts Graduate Student Research Award, University of British Columbia (2024)
• Killam Donald N. Byers Memorial Prize, University of British Columbia (2023)
• Killam Memorial Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, University of British Columbia (2023-2025)
• Canada Graduate Scholarship – Doctoral, SSHRC (2023-2026)
• Early Career Researcher Travel Award, Generative Episodic Memory Meeting (2023)
• Graduate Student Travel Award, UBC (2022)
• Graduate Entrance Scholarship, UBC (2022 – Deferred)
• Graduate Student Travel Award, UBC (2021)
• Canadian Graduate Scholarship – Master’s, NSERC (2021)
• HSBC Emerging Leader Scholarship, UBC (2020)
• Wesbrook Scholar, UBC (2020)
• NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award, NSERC/UBC (2020)
• Dean of Arts Scholarship, UBC (2020)
• Student Scholarship in Arts, UBC (2020)
• Trek Excellent Scholarship for Continuing Students, UBC (2020)
• Student Scholarship in Arts, UBC (2019)
• Trek Excellence Scholarship for Continuing Students, UBC (2019)
• Avie Bennett Prize in Canadian Literature, UBC (2018)