It should have been no surprise to Ella Van BEERS’14 that one of the top candidates for a research assistant’s position in the University of Toronto lab she manages was a fellow Branksome Hall alum. After all, talent naturally gravitates towards talent.

The real surprise was that neither Van Beers nor Clare (Jiachun) ZHANG’17, who graduates this spring from U of T, realized the other was a Branksome graduate. It wasn’t until six weeks later, when Zhang noticed the Branksome ring on Van Beers’ finger, that the lightbulb went on.

“Clare stood out among the applicants and I thought she’d be a great addition to the lab, but high school never came up in our conversation,” says Van Beers.

Zhang joined the lab as a volunteer research assistant in early 2020, but her exemplary skills and work ethic earned her a paid summer position. She works on Van Beers’ project, which explores “prosocial” or helping behaviour in children aged 18 months to four years, to understand how generosity and helping behaviours develop.

“We are interested in these behaviours and how they change as children develop,” says Van Beers. “We want to know whether factors such as empathy influence these behaviours, and what we can do to promote prosocial behaviour in children.”

Van Beers and Zhang were together in the lab for just a few months before the pandemic struck and everyone shifted to working from home. These days, their interactions take place via Zoom or by email. Nonetheless, as they continue their research online, they find time to talk and joke about their Branksome experiences—teachers they remember, courses they took and other bits of shared history.

“It’s really nice to have that connection,” Van Beers says. 

She has also served as a mentor to Zhang who has now taken on part of the research project and has made a presentation about her findings at an international conference.

“I enjoy being a mentor,” says Van Beers. “It has been a privilege and an absolute pleasure to work with Clare. She is passionate about the project and has a great work ethic. She’s grown so much and it’s amazing to see how much she’s done in the past year.”

“Unfortunately, the only conferences we’ve been able to attend have all been online. We were really hoping to travel and go to Budapest.”

Although she’ll soon have her U of T degree, Zhang has agreed to work at the lab throughout the summer to wrap up their current project and begin piloting a follow-up study. She’s interested in going to graduate school in the future to continue studying child psychology. 

Meanwhile, Zhang relishes the connection and acknowledges that you just never know when someone from Branksome will pop up—but it’s a pleasant surprise when they do. It simply reinforces the school’s sense of community.