Category: Researcher’s Window

Taking a closer look at research and experiences of SSHD members

～Researcher’s Window～

This month, we are getting better acquainted with the research of Dr. Ying Zhang, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Clarkson University and an emerging scholar committee member of SSHD. 

1. What drew you to do work in human development? 

   Growing up in a diverse neighborhood, I was intrigued by the varied paths my peers took, shaped by their environments. This sparked my interest in human development, leading me to pursue a master’s in clinical psychology at Jilin University, China. There, I learned the importance of early preventative mechanisms in family settings, which can have a profound impact on development. My doctoral studies at Syracuse University further honed my focus on child development, especially on the effects of experiences like intimate partner violence, maternal mental health, and parenting on children’s growth. This journey deepened my commitment to understanding and improving the foundational experiences that shape human development.

   2. Did you have any mentor or a researcher who had a substantial influence on your path or work? 

   I've been very fortunate to have many great mentors who aren't just brilliant but also incredibly supportive. At Syracuse University, Dr. Rachel Razza, my doctoral advisor, was one of those people. She not only supports my research focus towards early childhood experiences and self-regulation but also brought me into exciting research projects on how mindfulness can enhance self-regulation. Rachel’s warmth, compassion, and the way she balances guidance with autonomy have set an example, which I carry with me in my own teaching and mentoring. Now at Clarkson University, I have received the support of Dr. Lisa Legault in the Psychology Department. Her unwavering support and guidance have been key in helping me navigate the path to tenure while keeping a productive yet balanced career. I’m grateful to have her in my corner.

   3. Key contributions to human development: 

   My research is rooted in Diversity Science and driven by a deep commitment to improving the well-being of children and families through empirical studies. I focus on understanding how different contextual factors—such as intimate partner violence (IPV), parental mental health, and socioeconomic disparities—shape self-regulation in children. At its core, my work seeks to identify key mechanisms of risk and resilience, particularly in early life and adolescence, to inform more effective interventions.

   One of my main research areas explores how IPV exposure affects children's self-regulation and overall development. My recent work (Zhang et al., 2024; Family Process) examines how parenting stress and warmth mediate the relationship between IPV exposure and self-regulation, emphasizing the critical role of caregiving environments. A key contribution of my work is synthesizing these findings across developmental stages. For example, a three-wave cross-lagged study (Zhang et al., 2023, Child Abuse & Neglect) provides evidence that IPV and child maltreatment often co-occur and jointly shape self-regulation trajectories over time. Additionally, my systematic review (Zhang et al., 2023, Journal of Family Violence) consolidates decades of research, identifying critical gaps and future directions for understanding the long-term effects of IPV on children's development.

   Building on these work, my recent HHS-funded project, Maximizing the Impact of Early Head Start Programs, extends these investigations by taking a person-centered approach to understanding how varying levels of early Head Start program engagement influence children's emotional regulation, parenting practices, and maternal mental health. Using latent growth modeling, our team aims to identify the most effective service profiles for different families, refining early intervention strategies to better support child and family well-being.

   4. Your one wish for the study of human development

   If granted one wish, it would be for greater recognition and adoption of advanced computational methods, like machine learning, in human development research. These tools could transform our ability to predict outcomes and design personalized interventions. By integrating them, we could better understand the complex interactions between genetic, environmental, and psychological factors across the lifespan, advancing both research and real-world applications in human development.

   5. A mentoring statement or quote

   “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” – Carl Sagan

   About the researcher
   Dr. Ying Zhang is an assistant professor of psychology at Clarkson University, her research focuses on contextual factors such as violence exposure, poverty, maternal mental health, and parenting influencing childhood self-regulation. She also studies topics on appreciation of diversity-seeking, and wellbeing. Dr. Zhang's expertise lies in analyzing longitudinal data with advanced statistical modeling (e.g., latent profile analyses, longitudinal path analysis, latent growth modeling, cross-lagged modeling, and multi-level modeling). She recently developed and taught two undergraduate courses, "Diversity Science" and "Cultural Psychology," focusing on promoting prejudice reduction and cultural competence in college students. She received M.Ed. in Applied Psychology (Clinical track) in China and a Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Science from Syracuse University.

Edited and launched by Yoko Yamamoto, Deborah J. Johnson, and Qingyang Liu

SSHD Publicity & Diversity Science Initiative Committee

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Taking a closer look at research and experiences of SSHD members

～Researcher’s Window～

This month, we are getting better acquainted with the research of Dr. Ashley Shafer, a Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Pittsburgh’s Office of Child Development and an emerging scholar committee member of SSHD.

1. What drew you to do work in human development?

My passion for human development stems from a deep commitment to understanding how early experiences shape lifelong outcomes. My work in early childhood education, particularly in under-resourced communities, has reinforced the importance of equitable access to high-quality programs. Seeing the impact of supportive relationships, culturally responsive practices, and community-driven approaches solidified my desire to contribute to the field.

2. Did you have any mentor or a researcher who had a substantial influence on your path or work?

I have been fortunate to have incredible mentors who have profoundly shaped my academic and professional journey. Dr. Shannon Wanless was the first to introduce me to research, welcoming me into her lab when I was an undergraduate student with a curiosity about educational psychology but no formal research experience. She treated me not just as a student, but as an emerging scholar, challenging me to think critically and engage deeply in both theory and practice. Under her mentorship, I learned how to bridge research and real-world application, particularly through community-engaged work that centers relationships and equity. Because of her, I have pursued opportunities to lead research projects, present at national conferences, and take on leadership roles that contribute to the broader field.

Dr. Josefina Bañales has also had a significant impact on my work, particularly in how I think about research as a tool for social change. Her commitment to community-engaged scholarship and her work with youth critical racial consciousness development have influenced how I approach issues of equity, inclusion, and empowerment in early childhood education. As a mentor, she leads with authenticity, care, and an unwavering commitment to amplifying the voices of those who are often overlooked in research. Seeing how she co-creates knowledge with youth, families, and communities has reinforced my belief in participatory approaches to research and program development.

3. You have a range of important work, select 1-2 findings that you feel are key contributions to human development and describe those in brief. 

One key contribution of my work is the advancement of equity in early childhood education by exploring how relationship-based professional development can serve as a mechanism for justice. Early childhood professionals, especially those working in under-resourced communities, often navigate systemic barriers that impact their well-being and effectiveness. My research highlights how mentorship, reflective supervision, and professional learning communities can act as protective factors, equipping educators with the support they need to sustain their work and foster stronger, more equitable learning environments for young children. When educators are valued and supported, they are better able to engage in culturally responsive and developmentally appropriate interactions that honor the identities and experiences of the children and families they serve.

Another significant area of my research challenges traditional, deficit-based approaches to family engagement by centering the strengths, voices, and lived realities of diverse communities. Rather than imposing prescriptive models, my work underscores the importance of co-constructing engagement strategies with families, particularly those from historically marginalized backgrounds. Our findings suggest that when families are seen as equal partners in the learning process, early childhood programs become more inclusive, responsive, and just. Through this lens, my research contributes to dismantling inequitable power structures in education and promoting policies and practices that affirm and uplift all families.

Taken together, my work contributes to human development by emphasizing the critical role of relationships as a foundation for equity and justice in early childhood education. By centering the well-being of the early childhood workforce, many of whom are individuals from historically marginalized communities, my research highlights the systemic changes needed to create sustainable, high-quality early childhood systems. Educators, caregivers, and families are not just participants in these systems but essential partners in shaping them.

Your current projects

I am currently integrating research and evaluation into early childhood programs to strengthen service delivery and advance equity. In my current role at an Early Head Start program, I study how professional learning communities empower home visitors to apply Infant Mental Health principles in ways that honor families’ diverse experiences. Another project explores how embedding reflective supervision practices can serve as a structural intervention to enhance workforce well-being. Early childhood educators and home visitors, who are often women and individuals from systematically marginalized communities, face high levels of stress and burnout due to systemic inequities in pay, resources, and support. By fostering spaces for reflection, emotional processing, and professional growth, this research aims to shift early childhood programs toward more just and sustainable workforce policies– ultimately improving outcomes for both the professionals and the families they serve.

4. Your one wish for the study of human development?

I wish for human development research to be a tool for dismantling systemic inequities rather than just documenting them. This requires shifting from a top-down approach to one where communities are co-creators of knowledge, ensuring research is accountable to those it seeks to serve. When research informs and is informed by practice, we can create meaningful, lasting improvements in early childhood education, workforce well-being, and family support systems.

5. A mentoring statement or quote you find most meaningful or life-changing
   
   “Beloved community is formed not by the eradication of difference but by its affirmation, by each of us claiming the identities and cultural legacies that shape who we are and how we live in the world.” – bell hooks

About the researcher

Ashley Shafer, Ph.D., is a Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Pittsburgh’s Office of Child Development. Her work focuses on improving the early childhood experience by creating Early Relational Health informed contexts that support child and family well-being. She specializes in workforce well-being, family engagement, and integrating research into practice to advance equity in early childhood systems. Dr. Shafer’s research emphasizes relationship-based professional development, culturally responsive practices, and program evaluation to ensure that early childhood professionals and families receive the support they need to thrive. Through community-engaged projects, she works to bridge research, policy, and practice to drive systemic change. She received her Ph.D. in Applied Developmental Psychology with a minor in Research Methods from the University of Pittsburgh.

Edited and launched by Yoko Yamamoto, Deborah J. Johnson, and Qingyang Liu

SSHD Publicity & Diversity Science Initiative Committee

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Taking a closer look at research and experiences of SSHD members

～Researcher’s Window～

This month, we are getting better acquainted with the research of Qingyang Liu, a Ph.D. Candidate at Syracuse University. She is an emerging scholar and a member of the publicity committee at SSHD.

1. What drew you to do work in your field?

My interest in human development began during my sophomore year as an undergraduate in China when I took a course on Developmental Psychology. I was captivated by the ideology of lifespan development, which examines growth and change from “womb to tomb.” This academic foundation inspired me to explore how humans develop and thrive over time. My interest deepened during an internship at a children’s hospital, where I closely observed children with both typical and atypical developmental trajectories. Witnessing the profound variations in their growth, I became especially interested in how young children learn to self-regulate their behaviors, emotions, and attention—skills that are critical for lifelong success. This fascination with self-regulation inspired me to investigate how these capacities develop, evolve, and mature across childhood. For me, childhood (ages 3–12) represents a high-potential developmental period filled with opportunities for growth, resilience, and flourishing. My multicultural and interdisciplinary background informs my research perspective, allowing me to view human development as a dynamic, evolving process shaped by contextual and relational factors. This framework has driven my commitment to advancing research that promotes equity and well-being across diverse populations.

2. Did you have any mentor or a researcher who had a substantial influence on your path or work?

Throughout my doctoral training journey, I have been extremely fortunate to have received the guidance of many incredible scholars and mentors who have profoundly shaped my scholarship, professional development, and personal growth. Dr. Rachel Razza has been instrumental in helping me thrive during my doctoral training, providing unwavering mentorship that has supported my development into an independent scholar. Her guidance has extended beyond academics, fostering my independent growth to navigate the complexities of research and academia. Dr. Gabriel Joey Merrin inspired me to embrace cutting-edge methodologies through countless collaborative working sessions that exemplified his passion for advancing the field. Dr. Sara Vasilenko has been a model for building and sustaining a research lab, showing me how to nurture a motivated and cohesive team while maintaining an inclusive and inspiring research environment. Dr. Xiafei Wang has deeply influenced my thinking about human development theories, encouraging me to engage with them critically and creatively during the writing process. Beyond these individuals, peer mentors like Dr. Ying Zhang have treated me as both a colleague and a friend, providing constructive feedback, encouragement, and support. Across all these relationships, my mentors have shown extraordinary generosity with their time and insights, consistently fostering my research, career development, and personal growth. Their mentorship has inspired me to model the same warmth, generosity, and support in guiding future students and colleagues, ensuring that I contribute to a culture of collaboration and inclusivity in human development research.

3. You have a range of important work, select 1-2 findings that you feel are key contributions to human development and describe those in brief. 

Liu, Q., Merrin, G. J., Vasilenko, S. A., & Razza, R. A. (2024). Continuity and change in early material hardship domains on the development of children’s behavioral self-regulation in middle childhood. Children and Youth Services Review, 167.

Material hardship and behavioral self-regulation: One of my key contributions examines the continuity and change in material hardship domains (e.g., food, housing, bill-paying, utility, and medical) from postpartum to preschool years and their long-term impact on children’s behavioral self-regulation in middle childhood (Liu et al., 2024b). Using a nationally representative dataset, I utilized a person-centered approach to identify four distinct trajectories of material hardship with varying chronicity and changing patterns, demonstrating how persistent financial adversity significantly undermines children’s behavioral self-regulation development. This work emphasizes the urgent need for interventions targeting economically disadvantaged families, highlighting cultural and inclusion significance by addressing systemic inequities that disproportionately affect minoritized and underserved populations.

Liu, Q., Razza, R. A., Zhang, Y., & Merrin, G. J. (2024). Differential growth trajectories of behavioral self-regulation from early childhood to adolescence: Implication for youth domain-general and school-specific outcomes. Applied Developmental Science, 1-21.

Behavioral self-regulation promotes adolescents’ flourishing: Another key contribution explores longitudinal developmental trajectories of behavioral self-regulation from early childhood to adolescence and their unique associations with adolescent outcomes, such as positive functioning, delinquent behavior, school connectedness, and peer victimization (Liu et al., 2024a). This study employed a person-centered approach and identified four distinct behavioral self-regulation trajectories among underrepresented, minoritized children, including Early Developer (52.3%), Moderate Stable (37.4%), Lagged Developer (5.2%), and Regressor (5%). The Early Developer behavioral self-regulation trajectory showed the most protective outcomes, with high positive functioning and school connectedness and low delinquent behavior and victimization. Conversely, the Regressor behavioral self-regulation trajectory was associated with the riskiest outcomes. The findings underscore the importance of culturally sensitive, timely, and tailored interventions during the transition from early to middle childhood to enhance self-regulation, particularly for at-risk youth.

4. Your one wish for the study of human development

My wish is to advance the human development field beyond traditional, Western-centric frameworks, ensuring that research reflects the experiences and needs of diverse populations. By integrating voices and methodologies from underrepresented communities, cross-cultural studies, and multi-disciplines like public policy, sociology, public health, and education, researchers could generate more holistic and equitable insights to design interventions that address systemic disparities, ultimately fostering environments where all individuals can thrive.

5. A mentoring statement or quote you find most meaningful or life-changing

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill

About the researcher

Qingyang Liu is a fifth-year PhD Candidate in the Department of Human Development and Family Science at Syracuse University and an incoming Postdoctoral Research Scholar in the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University in July 2025. Her research program focuses on promoting the developmental trajectory of self-regulation from early childhood through adolescence among racially/ethnically minoritized children living in poverty. Specifically, she investigates the influences of early poverty-related stressors (e.g., material hardship, household chaos), relational processes (e.g., parenting), and socio-environmental factors (e.g., neighborhood poverty/violence) that shape normal and atypical development of self-regulation in various ecological contexts. She received an M.S. in Educational Psychology and Methodology from the University at Albany, SUNY, a B.A. in Psychology from San Francisco State University, and a B.S. in Applied Psychology from Guangzhou Medical University.

Edited and launched by Yoko Yamamoto, Deborah J. Johnson, and Qingyang Liu

SSHD Publicity & Diversity Science Initiative Committee

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Taking a closer look at research and experiences of SSHD members

～Researcher’s Window～

 This month we are getting better acquainted with the research of Rick Settersten, Barbara Knudson Endowed Chair and Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences at Oregon State University, and Head of the School of Social and Behavioral Health Sciences in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences.

1. What drew you to do work in human development?

   My mother will tell you that, even as a little kid, I was fascinated by time: I was too often worried about being on time or late. I loved to sit with boxes of old family photographs, intrigued by how people had changed as they’d grown older, and with old family members, asking questions about the past. My whole career would come to be driven by questions about how women and men experience time, age, and the life course.

2. Did you have any mentor or a researcher who had substantial influence in your path or work? Is there a significant moment or story that capsulizes the nature of that influence on your scholarship or professional journey?

In the spring of 1985, I fell in love: In an undergraduate course in adult development and aging, we watched an old film based on landmark Kansas City Study of Adult Life of the 1950s. There on screen was Bernice Neugarten, talking about ideas that had deeply resonated with me: That every society has scripts that define a “normal, expectable life.” That these scripts come with “age timetables” for major life transitions, and people know whether they are on-time or off-time. That in middle age, time seems to accelerate and people begin to think much more about how much time they have left.

I would eventually have the privilege of studying with Neugarten and her academic “daughter,” Gunhild Hagestad. Their influences are very present within me. Gunhild and I have over 30 years of shared history, she aging from her 40s to 70s and me from my 20s to 50s. I am now older than she was when we first met! We recently wrote a personal essay about aging in The Gerontologist.

I’ve been lucky to have many mentors, and each one has taught me something special. We need mentors at every point in our careers, not just when we are young.

3. You have a range of important work, select 1-2 findings that you feel are key contributions to human development and describe those in brief.  What might be the cultural, inclusion or global significance of your work?

I am repeatedly struck by this observation: That in the United States, private resources and social relationships matter a great deal in determining people’s outcomes. It’s as true for old age as it is for childhood.

As a life course researcher, I am constantly confronted with the stark realities of advantage and disadvantage in our nation, and with how much these accumulate over life and across generations. And yet, I’m also witness to the fact that human beings can be extraordinarily resilient in the face of adversity, and that people with privileged beginnings don’t always escape negative outcomes.

There’s a silver lining: Many of the things that create disadvantage and adversity are malleable through interventions and through changes in institutions and policies. And as researchers, it is within our reach to improve human lives and social worlds.

4. If you had just one wish for the study of human development, what would it be? How would it advance the field? 

Ha! I love it that you’re asking that question. Megan McClelland and I devoted a special issue of Research in Human Development to it a few years ago.

My wish is that developmental science will get better at revealing the intensity and complexity of human life as a social experience. Life’s strongest storylines are punctuated by and enmeshed with other people. The principle of “linked lives” is repeated as a mantra in life course literature. And yet this stands in direct contrast to the state of research, which largely treats individuals as if they exist in isolation of others. To simply say that lives are “linked” says nothing about their nature, length, purposes, or consequences. We need to do better in revealing these things.

5. A mentoring statement or quote you find most meaningful or life-changing.

From Maya Angelou, who said: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” That’s how I’ve tried to live and lead.

About the researcher

Dr. Rick Settersten is Barbara Knudson Endowed Chair and Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences at Oregon State University, and Head of the School of Social and Behavioral Health Sciences in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences. He is the founding director of the Hallie Ford Center for Healthy Children and Families at OSU and was a member of the MacArthur Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood and Public Policy. He received his doctorate in Human Development and Social Policy from Northwestern University and held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Education in Berlin

Edited and launched by Yoko Yamamoto, Deborah J. Johnson, and Qingyang Liu

SSHD Publicity & Diversity Science Initiative Committee

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Taking a closer look at research and experiences of SSHD members

～Researcher’s Window～

This month we are getting better acquainted with the research of Dr. Deborah Johnson, Professor of Human Development and Family Studies and Director of the Diversity Research Network at Michigan State University.

1. What drew you to do work in human development?

The civil rights and Black power movements resided in the backdrop of my childhood on Chicago’s south side.  I witnessed struggle and change. One of the core issues of that time was how to achieve widespread social change for my generation and the generations to follow.  Among the many responses was, education. To equalize education was the pebble in the pool reverberating throughout American society. When I arrived at the University of Chicago I was clear, I would be an educator, and the Human Behavior and Institutions major (later Human Development) seemed the right opportunity at the right time.  Plunging into the major, I learned that not only was the problem more complex and systemic, but the answers were also multilevel and systemic.  Human Development as a contextual systems approach provided the greatest potential to continue my queries, wrestling with the complex nature of my own community and others like mine. In my third year of undergraduate education it was again clear, in order to impact widespread social change the work that I did had to be at the foundation of what others did who served children.  My work should be develop to influence change in how professionals delivered critical information and trained young children in schools.  As such, I imagined many pools in which to drop my pebble. These early goals, though perhaps naïve, transformed over time to my deepest motivations.

2. Did you have any mentor or a researcherwho had substantial influence in your path or work? Is there a significant moment or story that capsulizes the nature of that influence on your scholarship or professional journey?

There are many amazing mentors in my career path. At Cornell University in HDFS, Leachim Semaj, a Piagetian scholar from Rutgers, and Bill Cross, a social psychologist from Princeton both influenced my scholarship in ethnic-racial identity development of children, each having very different perspectives on the process theoretically. At a conference as a master’s student I requested a meeting with Diana Slaughter (Kotzin), she energetically took me by the hand and introduced me to every significant scholar of color at that conference. She then made the observation that “she was old enough to be my mother,” in the great tradition of German academic mentors referred to as “doctor-mothers” and “doctor-fathers”. She had claimed in one moment that she would be my career-long mentor.  Neither of us knew at the time but it was truer than anything I’ve known before or since. She meant that she was committed to teaching me what she knew and to supporting my career through the duration of hers.  I flourished under her candor and tutelage; I learned the craft. And I learned how to carry the future of others with me to open doors.

3. You have a range of important work, select 1-2 findings that you feel are key contributions to human development and describe those in brief.  What might be the cultural inclusion or global significance of your work?

Racial Socialization. Using Comer data from 22 urban schools in Chicago we analyzed the racial coping data of 672 African American children in elementary school over a 4 year period. We were able to demonstrate that varying diversity in student contexts elevated some coping strategies over others and that our racial coping strategies mapped onto constructs of instrumental and emotion-focused coping emanating from stress theory. Extracting a subset of children who were interviewed at grade 1 and grade 3, we learned, not surprisingly, of developmental elements of racial coping. Children matured in their racial coping shifting away from adult support to more independent strategies and non-confrontational racial coping.

Sudanese Refugee Youth. We have followed a group of unaccompanied Sudanese refugee minors (sometimes referred to as “Lost Boys”) for over 15 years. Among the many findings are those related to identity and adjustment, and those pertaining to the collective use of voice among the refugee youth. There were constant well-meaning demands placed upon the youth to tell their stories of escaping war and displacement. To avoid being re-traumatized they learned to tell a collective story (bits and pieces of all their lives) that both protected them and bridged them to the communities where they were resettled. Girls in this group were less able to use this device when not in the company of boys and this left them more vulnerable. An associated qualitative finding was discovering the vulnerability of the refugee girls to community sanctioned interpersonal violence from other Sudanese, including, male elders, relatives, and partners.

4. Your one wish for the study of human development

The social sciences continue to suffer from the development of parallel schools of thought, language, and research production in some areas where few cross connections exist.  For instance, prescribed camps of scholarship on social identity and ethnic racial identity rarely cite one another’s work. They exist in parallel but often do not cross dimensions. Yet these fields of inquiry and theory are intricately interrelated. Admittedly, there are many social, historical, and conceptual reasons for this parallel development that align with schools of thought. Cross-national and cross-disciplinary collaborations seem to aid us in lessening these kinds of divides. My wish for human development is that we resolve areas of dissonance and generate more of these beneficial cross-connections to advance the field globally. In my lifetime, increasing the permeability of these two lanes of scholarship and scholars would signal a critical evolution in the field.

5. A mentoring statement or quote you find most meaningful or life-changing.

In a weak moment during my graduate program, I once asked a mentor, “Do you think I can complete this program?”  The rejoinder came back from Dr. Josephine Allen, “You’ve asked the wrong question, is your desire to complete the program?”

About the researcher

Dr. Deborah J. Johnson's research explores racially and culturally related development, parental racial socialization and coping, cultural adjustment from early childhood through emerging adulthood, in both domestic and international children and youth.  Current work focuses on the influence of early bias preparation and coping at the intersection of gender and race among African American and Latina College women, and the impact on their well-being and school performance. Additionally, she studies cultural adjustment and identity development among unaccompanied Sudanese refugee minors and majors, and in international settings with Indigenous Australian youth and, core collaboration on Roma youth in Europe. She is also Director of the Diversity Research Network, a faculty serving entity under the auspices of MSU’s Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives.

Edited and launched by Yoko Yamamoto, Deborah J. Johnson, and Qingyang Liu

SSHD Publicity & Diversity Science Initiative Committee

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Taking a closer look at research and experiences of SSHD members

～Researcher’s Window～

This month we are getting better acquainted with the research of Dr. Juan Del Toro. He is Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

1. What drew you to do work in your field?

Initially, the mentors. As an undergraduate, I read many of my mentors’ studies, and I was inspired by the issues they were addressing. Their mentorship style also made me feel like I could contribute to the change that they wanted out of their research. By doing research, I learned about the importance that early life experiences can have on individuals’ life courses, and I slowly began identifying as a developmental psychologist because I firmly believed in the importance of research in this area. That is not to say that other topics and fields are unimportant! To address racism, we need research via all lenses, including social psychology, sociology, public health, etc. However, where I feel like I can contribute is from my training in human development.

2. Did you have any mentor or a researcher who had a substantial influence on your path or work?

My first memorable experience was with my undergraduate mentor, Dr. Desdamona ‘Desi’ Rios, whom I met during my second year in college, and I was majoring in chemistry at the time. We met at a first-generation welcome event, and Desi shared that she received her PhD in Psychology and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan. After her introduction, I approached her and naively asked, “You can get a PhD in that?” She responded that she did and that she was building her research lab, and I followed up with, “You have a lab?”, as I didn’t grow up learning that research could be extended to the social sciences. Thereafter, I began working with her on research, which was a defining point for my current career as an assistant professor of psychology.

3. You have a range of important work, select 1-2 findings that you feel are key contributions to human development and describe those in brief. 

There are two lines of work that I'm thrilled to work on, and they both pertain to resilience among adolescents of color. In one of my line works, I'm working to illustrate that the intended resilience tied to messages that youth receive about their race/ethnicity (i.e., racial/ethnic socialization) may not always be apparent in psycho-social measures but rather in distal indicators of well-being that can be captured in biological indicators of their health. I have been titling this phenomenon as "Hidden Resilience" because biomarker indicators of well-being are not visible to the naked eye but are rather hidden "underneath the skin." In a second line of work, I have been working to illustrate that messages from different agents of racial/ethnic socialization do not carry equal value, but rather racial/ethnic socialization from teachers may instill adolescents with more resilience than that from other agents (e.g., parents, peers). As most readers may recall from their own upbringings or even witnessing their teenage children's experiences, teenagers have a lot of pressure to be independent and autonomous outside the family, making them less inclined to want to listen and reach out to their parents for support. Instead, teenagers are more likely to lean on others, such as close adult figures in school, for support, and I'm finding that this support is promotive and protective in the context of racial/ethnic discrimination.

4. Your one wish for the study of human development

One thing that I wish and am working to encourage is for the field to think of human development at the population level. As a field, human development mostly relies on individual-level data to make inferences about issues, like racism, affecting populations. However, the way to challenge racism is by targeting policies that perpetually support and reinforce racist cultures and practices. To change policy, we need large and population level data to make strong inferences about the particular policies that sustain racism.

5. A mentoring statement or quote you find most meaningful or life-changing

“If you’re not getting rejected, then you’re not aiming high enough.”

About the researcher

Dr. Juan Del Toro is Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. His primary appointment is in the Personality, Individual Differences, and Behavioral Genetics (PIB) program. He also holds affiliate faculty appointments in the Clinical Science and Psychopathology Research program, the Institute of Child Development, and the Minnesota Population Center. I received my Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology with a concentration in Advanced Quantitative Analyses from New York University, and he completed my postdoctoral training at the University of Pittsburgh. As a developmental psychologist, he examines how specific perpetrators of ethnic-racial discrimination (e.g., peers, school adults, and law enforcement) and ethnic-racial socialization (e.g., parents, school adults, and peers) shape children’s life course trajectories. The goal of specifying perpetrators is to inform setting-specific policies and interventions working to improve the well-being of all youth.

Edited and launched by Yoko Yamamoto, Deborah J. Johnson, and Qingyang Liu

SSHD Publicity & Diversity Science Initiative Committee

Visit our website for more information! https://sshdonline.org/

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Taking a closer look at research and experiences of SSHD members

～Researcher’s Window～

This month we are getting better acquainted with the research of Dr. Hyun-Kyung You. She is a Professor in Child Development at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt.

1. What drew you to do work in your field?

My interest in human development started with the introductory psychology class, about thirty years ago. As I freshly arrived in a predominantly white, small college town in the United States, I was struck by the importance and problems of race(s). How young do children become aware of other races? How early do children develop racial prejudice? Not only was I exploring these ideas in the literature, but also encountering them in my interactions with other immigrants and their children.

2. Did you have any mentor or a researcher who had a substantial influence on your path or work?

There are a few inspiring teachers and mentors in my professional and scholarly journey. Dr. Lori McGraw challenged yet nurtured me throughout my doctoral program, as we engaged in endless discussions on the intersectionality of motherhood, disability, class, and culture. Dr. Sharon Rosenkoetter offered me many opportunities, from teaching young children to working with early childhood leaders.

3. You have a range of important work, select 1-2 findings that you feel are key contributions to human development and describe those in brief. 

My scholarship has centered on individuals’ agentic relationship with their social and cultural contexts. We constantly negotiate who we are, what roles are salient to us, and how we create and maintain relationships through resistance and conformation; disagreement and agreement. I particularly saw this dialect exchange in my qualitative study on Korean mothers’ understanding of themselves and their children with autism. While it was challenging for these women to resist Korean culture’s “good” mother ideology, they reconstructed the meaning of “normal” childhood.

I am currently interested in transnational habitus (Nukaga, 2012) and transnational family caregiving among immigrants. This exploration also acknowledges human development in relation to spaces and times.

4. Your one wish for the study of human development

I think that more collaborations across cultures and disciplines would advance our understanding of human development. Perhaps SSHD will be a great platform for those.

5. A mentoring statement or quote you find most meaningful or life-changing

“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it” (Paulo Coelho, the Alchemist)

About the researcher

Hyun-Kyung You is Professor in the Child Development Department at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt. Hyun-Kyung’s research focuses on the dialectic interactions between individuals’ agency and sociocultural contexts. Particularly, she is interested in family life in relation to child’s disability, motherhood in cultural contexts, and intergenerational relationships and caregiving in transnational families. Hyun-Kyung also has broadened her research interest into understanding the BTS fandom, ARMY (Adorable Representative MC of Youth) through human development and family studies lens. She is a recipient of 2012 Jessie Bernard Outstanding Research Paper Award from a Feminist Perspective, National Council on Family Relations. Hyun-Kyung teaches various courses on early childhood development and practices, families and children with disabilities, and families in community and cultural contexts.

Edited and launched by Yoko Yamamoto, Deborah J. Johnson, and Qingyang Liu

SSHD Publicity & Diversity Science Initiative Committee

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Taking a closer look at research and experiences of SSHD members

～Researcher’s Window～

This month we are getting better acquainted with the research of the current President-Elect of SSHD, Dr. Christia S. Brown. She is a Professor of Developmental Psychology and Associate Dean of Inclusive Excellence in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky.

1. What drew you to do work in your field?

I first became interested in human development as an undergraduate in a Developmental Psychology class. We had an assignment to administer a Piagetian conservation task to a child. I tested my young cousin, who failed it beautifully. It was the first time I really paid attention to the ways in which children thought differently about the world around them than adults. Around the same time, I also started tutoring children from low-income families who attended a very underfunded elementary school. It was clear to me that the children I worked with were being influenced by the school they attended, the neighborhood they lived in, and the constraints their parents faced. I became interested in how these foundational experiences shaped the rest of their lives.

2. Did you have any mentor or a researcher who had a substantial influence on your path or work?

My graduate advisor, Rebecca Bigler, had a profound influence on my path, both as a researcher and as a person. Having an outspoken feminist mentor who is a brilliant researcher taught me much more than research. I was taught to work hard, ask tough questions, and be brave in the face of the White patriarchal power structures that devalued research on children's gender and ethnic stereotypes. It was a powerful lesson that taught me that research on human development can be focused on issues of social justice and that developmental scientists can ask thoughtful research questions that are both rigorous and consistent with our moral values of equity and inclusion. On a personal level, as a first-generation college student, I was really lucky to have a mentor who valued their family, who modeled for me how to be an academic and a parent, and who supported me as a complete person. I have tried to do the same thing for all of my students.

3. You have a range of important work, select 1-2 findings that you feel are key contributions to human development and describe those in brief. 

Much of my research has examined how children and adolescents perceive gender and ethnic discrimination. One of the most important findings shows that children in elementary school can perceive gender and ethnic discrimination from their peers and teachers, and this can negatively affect children's attitudes about their academic abilities. Importantly, though, children’s burgeoning ethnic and gender identities can help buffer some of the sting of discrimination.  As part of this work, we have highlighted the importance of the early development of ethnic identity, among both ethnic minority children (to withstand discrimination) and White children (to understand, and hopefully stop, discrimination). We have also shown that children whose teachers and schools explicitly value diversity experience less peer discrimination and feel more positively about their ethnicity (and feel more positively about school) than children whose teachers are indifferent about diversity. This work suggests that schools, instead of ignoring ethnic diversity, should help ethnic minority children feel proud of their ethnicity, show children a range of ethnically diverse role models, and reinforce treating each other with respect.

4. Your one wish for the study of human development

I wish that more research on human development was put into the hands of people who could use it. There is so much misinformation out there. I wish researchers across the span of human development could translate key research findings to the public. The work we all do is so important to improving people's quality of life, but it often only lives in journal articles and academic books.

5. A mentoring statement or quote you find most meaningful or life-changing

Put your head down, work hard, live the life you want, and ignore everything else.

About the researcher

Christia Spears Brown, Ph.D., is the Professor of Developmental Psychology and Associate Dean of Inclusive Excellence in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky. Her research focuses on children’s understanding of discrimination, the development of stereotypes and group identity, and the impact of discrimination and stereotypes on academic outcomes. As an intergroup researcher, her work spans gender and gender identity, ethnicity, immigration status, and economic inequality. In addition to peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, she has written three books, one for an academic audience, Discrimination in Childhood and Adolescence, and two for general audiences, Parenting Beyond Pink and Blue and Unraveling Bias. She is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science; has been a Society for Research in Child Development Scholar-in-Residence; and is an Associate Editor for British Journal of Developmental Psychology. She is committed to “giving science away” to help improve the lives of all children and adolescents, and therefore regularly speaks with parent groups, schools, toy and media companies, and professional organizations about reducing the impact of stereotypes, is regularly featured in national media outlets, and has served as an expert witness for the ACLU on cases of gender discrimination in schools.

Edited and launched by Yoko Yamamoto and Deborah J. Johnson

SSHD Publicity & Diversity Science Initiative Committee

Visit our website for more information! https://sshdonline.org/

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Taking a closer look at research and experiences of SSHD members

～Researcher’s Window～

This month we are getting better acquainted with the research of Dr. Yao Zheng, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Alberta.  

1. What drew you to do work in human development?

I took a course on Lifespan Development by Dr. Yanjie Su (one of the few professors offering true lifespan perspective in China, as opposed to conventional Developmental Psychology that typically focuses on childhood and adolescence) in my sophomore year, and was mesmerized by the beauty of human development from womb to tomb. I am particularly fascinated by adolescent development. To me, adolescence (10–25 years) represents an exciting developmental period with unlimited opportunities for the life ahead of us. Studying adolescence is also one way to remind myself of feeling “young” or “youthful.” My international and interdisciplinary educational background largely shapes my perspectives towards my research program. Human development is such a complex process, and we ought to use different ways to understand it, especially in different ecological contexts.

2. Did you have any mentor or a researcher who had substantial influence in your path or work?

I have many mentors to thank for my career path thus far. I especially want to thank (in no particular order) Drs. Peter Molenaar, Robert Plomin, Bob McMahon, Mara Brendgen, Frank Vitaro, Nancy Galambos, and Yanjie Su. Besides their impressive research career that constantly inspires my own research, I have learned tremendously through their mentorship the importance of being a good researcher as well as a good mentor. They share several common mentoring styles that I greatly appreciate: 1) treat me more as a colleague than a trainee, 2) are very generous with their time and provide detailed, constructive, and timely feedback, 3) are always warm and supportive of my research and career, and will go out of their way when I need help.  

3. You have a range of important work, select 1-2 findings that you feel are key contributions to human development and describe those in brief. 

Zheng, Y., Rijsdijk, F., Pingault, J. B., McMahon, R. J., & Unger, J. B. (2016). Developmental changes in genetic and environmental influences on Chinese child and adolescent anxiety and depression. Psychological Medicine, 46(9), 1829–1838.

Opposite to the common findings using Western samples, genetic influences on anxiety and depressive symptoms decreased to negligible in middle adolescence in the Chinese sample, while shared environmental influences (i.e., shared family, community, and neighborhood environmental experiences that make family members similar to each other) increased, and explained the most of the continuity of anxiety and depressive symptoms over time. This study represents the first and thus far the only endeavor that systematically elucidates genetic and environmental contributions to the longitudinal development of depressive and anxiety symptoms in children and adolescents using a non-European or non-North American sample. The novel findings highlight the salient and pronounced role of shared environmental experiences during the transition period of adolescence in non-Western societies such as China.

Zheng, Y., & McMahon, R. J. (2019). Lability in parental warmth in childhood: Antecedents and early adolescent outcomes. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 1–13.

This study examined, for the first time, the role of long-term within-person fluctuations in parental warmth throughout early childhood and its links with psychopathology and social competence in early adolescence. Specifically, a unique feature of the changes in parenting that describes within-person fluctuations in parenting practices over time –lability–is linked with adolescent adjustment, above and beyond the general level and developmental trends (i.e., increase or decrease or stable) of parenting. The findings showed that greater lability in parental warmth from kindergarten to grade 5 was linked with more internalizing problems in grade 7 and lower social competence in grade 6. Moreover, lability partly explained the effects of SES on social competence in boys but not in girls, whereas the indirect effects of SES on internalizing problems through lability were significant in girls but not in boys.

• Your current project and/or key projects

I have three current and active research projects: 1) parenting behaviors and parent–adolescent relationships in daily life, which follows 100 parent–adolescent dyads daily consecutively over a month, both pre- and during the COVID pandemic. 2) transition to university, which follows approximately 300 university students daily consecutively over a month in the freshman year and again in the junior year to examine their socioemotional and behavioral adjustment during this transition period. 3) assessing impulsivity, sensation seeking, and emotion regulation among adolescents and young adults and their links to emotional and behavioral problems.

• Contributions of your projects/research to the study of human development.

All my three research projects focus on short-term within-person developmental dynamics in daily contexts, as well as their changes and links to long-term developmental outcomes at multiple timescales. Human development happens continuously in every second and minute. A growing body of research has shown that developmental dynamics on these micro timescales are not necessarily equivalent to long-term developmental processes on macro timescales (e.g., years). Disentangling relatively stable between-person differences from within-person fluctuations at multiple levels of analysis during childhood and adolescence represents a major thrust of my research program.

4. Your one wish for the study of human development

We need to promote a more diverse, inclusive, and global developmental science, especially research from the Majority World.

5.  A mentoring statement or quote you find most meaningful or life-changing

“You can either travel or read, but either your body or soul must be on the way.” — Roman Holiday

About the researcher

Dr. Zheng is Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Alberta in the Developmental Science area. He was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow at Simon Fraser University and University of Quebec at Montreal. He received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Human Development and Family Studies, as well as a M.A.S. in Applied Statistics, from the Pennsylvania State University. He received his B.S. in Psychology from Yuan Pei Honors College, Peking University. During graduate school, he also visited the Department of Developmental Psychology at Friedrich-Schiller University Jena and the Social, Genetic, & Developmental Psychiatry Center at King’s College London as a visiting graduate student. His research focuses on the development and prevention of child and adolescent behavioral and emotional problems with the ultimate goal of informing intervention to promote physical and mental well-being. Specifically, he investigates the influences of family and peer processes that shape normal and atypical development at multiple levels of analysis and timescales in various ecological contexts.

Edited and launched by Deborah J. Johnson & Yoko Yamamoto
SSHD Publicity & Diversity Science Initiative Committee

Taking a closer look at research and experiences of SSHD members

～Researcher’s Window～

This month we are getting better acquainted with the research of Dr. Radosveta Dimitrova, a developmental and cross-cultural psychologist at Stockholm University.  

1. What drew you to do work in human development?

I think most developmental scientists like me are fascinated by the opportunity to uncover and research intriguing aspects of human development to find ways of sustaining positive development, thriving and success in various populations. Researching underserved, underprivileged, and marginalized communities using global, international, and cross-cultural perspectives has been of the utmost importance in my work. I am deeply grateful and fortunate to be in a privileged position that allows me a modicum of academic freedom and to learn from culturally diverse populations globally despite professional challenges.

2. Did you have any mentor or a researcher who had substantial influence in your path or work?

I have been honoured and grateful to have had many exceptional mentors. The first and most significant person is Cynthia Garcia Coll who mentored me when she was at Brown University. She was always unconditionally supportive in the midst of challenges and hard times. Fons van de Vijver at Tilburg University, the Netherlands - an exceptional scholar and mentor, recently deceased, was another role model and academic exemplar with his Dutch modesty, being truly supportive and always available for his collaborators. Both Cynthia and Fons deeply inspired my work on Roma minority populations. They helped me persist in this line of research that has brought me many professional achievements and rewards. I have been privileged as a mentee of Laura Ferrer-Wreder at Stockholm University, Sweden - a leading scholar in acculturation, prevention, and intervention. Laura is a true friend, and as a collaborator, exceptionally reliable, competent, and professional. Through my work and international travels across the globe, I have been able to connect with many other great folks from multiple disciplines who also deeply inspired my work.

3. You have a range of important work, select 1-2 findings that you feel are key contributions to human development and describe those in brief. 

Most of my projects were quite global and multidisciplinary in nature, involving 30 to 70 countries in major continents across the globe. Grounded in the traditions of developmental science, some of these projects focused on diversity and acculturation using a global perspective; ethnic minority (Roma) youth across Europe; emerging adulthood, Positive Youth Development (PYD) across cultures, etc. These projects have allowed me to expand existent knowledge to relevant aspects of human development and thriving globally and in highly vulnerable populations across culturally diverse settings. It is hard to summarize a major finding from all projects. But in addition to the advancement of theoretical and empirical knowledge related to human development, measurement, policy, and practice in global contexts, when looking at under-researched contexts and populations, the mainstream theory and research may seem inapplicable as new avenues with unexpected insights emerge. 

4. Your one wish for the study of human development

I wish there was global equity with resourceful and supporting contexts for people to thrive in their societies; this applies to both the populations we have been investigating as scientists and our fellow colleagues and scholars who may lack such contexts to study human development.

5.  A mentoring statement or quote you find most meaningful or life-changing

“You are a blessing in my life”

About the researcher Dr. Radosveta Dimitrova is a developmental and cross-cultural psychologist with main research interests on positive development, acculturation, migration, identity, indigenous and vulnerable ethnic minority (Roma) communities, and adaptation of measures for use in different cultures. She has research and teaching experience in leading universities across the globe and international collaborations in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, North and South America. She has primarily published in human development, cross-cultural and international psychology, emerging adulthood, child and family studies, and assessment by also serving major organizations and editorial boards of leading journals in other fields. In various global collaborations and organizations, she has systematically researched and provided service to vulnerable populations and fellow scholars in underprivileged contexts.

Edited and launched by Deborah J. Johnson & Yoko Yamamoto
SSHD Publicity & Diversity Science Initiative Committee