Tuuli Kukkonen

Tuuli Kukkonen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Relations & Applied Nutrition at the University of Guelph, housed within the College of Social & Applied Human Sciences. Her research focuses on sexual psychophysiology, particularly the interplay between biological and psychosocial factors in sexual health and aging. Dr. Kukkonen holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology from McGill University and has conducted groundbreaking work establishing thermography as a tool to measure sexual arousal. She leads a thermography laboratory funded by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, examining sexual functioning in both healthy and clinical populations.

Education: PhD in Clinical Psychology (McGill University, 2010), pre-doctoral internship at McGill University Health Centre’s Sex and Couple Therapy Service and Psychosocial Oncology Department.

Research interests include sexual health across the lifespan, aging, and innovative measurement techniques like thermography. Her work bridges clinical psychology and biomedical research, addressing gaps in understanding sexual health among older adults and clinical populations such as cancer patients. Teaching responsibilities include courses on human sexuality, couple/family relationships, and counseling.

Grants/Awards: Canadian Foundation for Innovation funding (2020) to establish the thermography lab. Her research has been featured in interdisciplinary journals, addressing topics from sexual arousal physiology to digital learning tools in STEM education.

Lab/Teams: Director of the thermography lab at University of Guelph, collaborating with interdisciplinary teams on sexual health innovation and clinical applications.