Biography
Marie-Pier Plouffe-Demers, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychoeducation and Psychology at the Université du Québec en Outaouais. Her research focuses on pain communication and on how culture and social dynamics shape the expression, perception, and interpretation of affective states. During her Ph.D. at UQAM, she developed an integrative approach to examine where cultural differences may emerge across the pain communication process. She has also studied racial biases in pain perception, including the under-detection and underestimation of pain when evaluating facial expressions displayed on Black faces. She then pursued postdoctoral research at Yale University on affective communication. Her current research program aims to better understand how cultural differences and social biases may influence pain assessment and care and, ultimately, to bridge this work with clinical practice.
