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Sandra Simpkins
PROFESSOR Sandra Simpkins, Ph.D. in psychology, is a professor in the School of Education. She received the William T. Grant Young Scholars Award and National Science Foundation CAREER Award to study how families, friendships, and social position factors (such as, ethnicity and culture) shape adolescents’ organized after-school activities and STEM motivation. She is currently working on research focused on the positive outcomes of youth’s participation in activities as well as the predictors and correlates of high school students’ STEM motivational beliefs. Click here for Sandra's full curriculum vitae. |
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Deborah Lowe Vandell
CHANCELLOR'S PROFESSOR Deborah is Chancellor's Professor of Education Emerita at the University of California, Irvine, where she served as the Founding Dean of the School of Education. An author of more than 150 articles and four books, her research focuses on the effects of developmental contexts (early care and education, K-12 schools, after-school programs, families) on children’s social, behavioral, and academic functioning. As one of the principal investigators with the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD), she has conducted an intensive study of 1300 children from birth through Age 26 years. Her research projects also have studied the effects of after-school programs, extracurricular activities, and unsupervised time on academic and social outcomes. This work has underscored the importance of out-of-school time as a key factor in children’s success at school. Professor Vandell started her career as an elementary school teacher. She earned her master’s degree in education at Harvard University and later received a Ph.D. in Psychology from Boston University. She has been elected to the National Academy of Education and is currently the President of Division 7 (Developmental Psychology) of the American Psychological Association. She has been recognized by the Society for Research in Child Development for Distinguished Career Contributions to Public Policy and Practice in Child Development. She is a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association, and the Association of Psychological Science. Click here for Deborah's full curriculum vitae. |
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Nicole Zarrett
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR Nicole Zarrett, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in Psychology at the University of South Carolina and Co-Director of the Behavioral Medicine Research Group. Her nationally funded program of research has focused on developing innovative, theoretically-based interventions that leverage the resources and supports of key youth settings (e.g., schools, after school programs, sports, and other organized activities, families) and change agents (e.g., teachers, coaches, program staff, parents) for promoting positive child and adolescent development. She is the PI on an NIH randomized controlled trial (NIH R01 NR017619-01)- Connect Through Positive Leisure Activities for Youth (PLAY)- that tests the efficacy of an innovative staff-based social motivational intervention for promoting healthy behaviors (e.g., physical activity) and related health outcomes (e.g, BMI, stress reduction, improved mental health) of underserved middle school youth and adult program staff. Her recently completed feasibility trial of the Connect curriculum (NIH R21 HD077357) yielded evidence of the acceptability, feasibility, and effectiveness of implementing an intervention targeting social and motivational mechanisms for improving health behaviors of at-risk youth. Click here for more information. |
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Jacquelynne S. Eccles
PROFESSOR Jacque is the Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of California, Irvine and formerly the McKeachie/Pintrich Distinguished University Professor of Psychology and Education at the University of Michigan, as well as Senior Research Scientist and Director of the Gender and Achievement Research Program at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. Over the past 30 years, Professor Eccles has conducted research on a wide variety of topics including gender-role socialization, teacher expectancies, classroom influences on student motivation, and social development in the family and school context. One of the leading developmental scientists of her generation, she has made seminal contributions to the study of achievement-related decisions and development. Most notably, her expectancy-value theory of motivation and her concept of stage-environment have served as perhaps the most dominant models of achievement during the school years, contributing to extensive research and reform efforts to improve the nature of secondary school transitions. Professor Eccles also has been a major figure in the study of after-school activities, authoring a seminal National Research Council report that outlined the most effective ways for such activities to meet the developmental needs of adolescents. Click here for Jacque's full curriculum vitae. |
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Zehra Gülseven
POSTDOCTORAL SCHOLAR Zehra is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the School of Education at University of California, Irvine. Zehra received her B.S. in Psychology from Abant İzzet Baysal University, in Turkey and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Science from the University of Missouri. Zehra's research interests focus on parental, cultural, and contextual (e.g., after school activities, SES) correlates of prosocial behaviors and moral development in children and adolescents. Click here for Zehra's full curriculum vitae. |
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Nestor Tulagan
POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW Nestor is a National Science Foundation SBE Postdoctoral Research Fellow at UCI's School of Education. Broadly, his research focuses on family socialization processes shaping the educational and psychological outcomes of underrepresent minority youths. His current projects examine the many different forms of Latinx parents’ STEM involvement behaviors to maximize STEM motivational beliefs and achievement and minimize academic challenges of adolescents, as well as the role of afterschool STEM activities in enhancing family supports and youth motivational beliefs in STEM. Click here for Nestor's full curriculum vitae. |
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Mark Vincent Yu
RESEARCH ASSOCIATE Mark is a Researcher at McREL International. Mark’s research interests focus on socio-ecological and strengths-based approaches to youth development. He is particularly interested in understanding how supportive relationships (with parents, peers and non-parental adults) and settings (e.g., schools, afterschool programs) serve as ecological assets in youth’s lives. Click here for Mark's full curriculum vitae. |
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Ting-Lan Ma
VISITING SCHOLAR Ting-Lan received her Ph.D. in Human Development area, Educational Psychology with a minor in prevention science from University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is currently collaborating with people in School of Education at UCI, while simultaneously fulfills her remote faculty position as an assistant professor of Education, and assistant of research director in Education Leadership Doctoral Program at Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin. Her research interests focus on multiple ecological system influences on adolescent psycho-social development including culture, parenting practices, and peer relation. Her most recent research focuses on defending in school bullying across childhood and adolescence, adolescent development in cross-cultural setting, socio-emotional factors predicting traditional and cyber-bullying, and organized activities among ethnicity minority youth. Click here for Ting-Lan's full curriculum vitae. |
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Perla Ramos Carranza
DOCTORAL STUDENT Perla is a doctoral student at the School of Education specializing in Human Development in Context (HDiC). She received her B.S. in Human Development and B.A. in Psychology from UC Davis in 2017. Perla is interested in understanding the resources that support Latinx students throughout their educational trajectories. Specifically, she focuses on studying the role of family involvement and extracurricular activities on the education of Latinx youth and how identity and sense of belonging in academic and community spaces may shape educational trajectories. Click here for Perla's full curriculum vitae. |
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Diane (Ta-yang) Hsieh
DOCTORAL STUDENT Diane’s research interests include academic motivation, after-school programs, and cultural differences in adolescent development. Diane is passionate about teaching, and ultimately Diane aims to be a professor back home in Taiwan. Diane graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with B.A. in Psychology and Human Development and Family Studies, in addition to a minor in criminal justice. When not reading or writing, Diane enjoys all kinds of sports in the outdoors. Click here for Diane's full curriculum vitae. |
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Su Jiang
DOCTORAL STUDENT Su is a doctoral student specializing in Human Development in Context (HDiC). Her research interests focus on the development of adolescents' math and science motivation and its impact on choices and achievement. Su aims to promote diversity and equity in STEM through understanding how development of motivation differs across race/ethnicity, gender, immigration status, and socioeconomic status. Click here for Sue's full curriculum vitae. |
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Fuko Kiyama
DOCTORAL STUDENT Fuko is a doctoral student specializing in Human Development in Context (HDiC) in the School of Education. Fuko’s personal experience as a cross-cultural child, raised in the U.S. and Japan, has informed her interest in studying the development of ethnic-racial identity (ERI) and critical consciousness among children and youth of color. Specifically, she hopes to explore how family cultural socialization practices and aspects of culturally responsive out-of-school programs influence youths’ ERI development and impact their academic motivation and well-being. Click here for Fuko's full curriculum vitae. |
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Glona Lee
DOCTORAL STUDENT Glona is a doctoral student specializing in Human Development in Context (HDiC). She studies motivational factors that influence students’ academic outcomes and the impact of social and environmental factors on adolescent development. In particular, she is interested in the roles that social agents play in fostering underrepresented minority youth’s well-being. Currently, Glona is working on projects that examine adolescents’ STEM motivation and outcomes as well as its relation to support from parents and teachers. Click here for Glona's full curriculum vitae. |
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Yangyang Liu
DOCTORAL STUDENT Yangyang is a doctoral student at UCI's School of Education. Her broad research focuses on the unique and joint influences of different social contexts on children and youth development. Her current research examines how participation and experiences in after-school programs and extracurricular activities promote social emotional, behavioral, and academic outcomes for children and youth from diverse backgrounds. Specifically, she studies the developmental pathways linking activity participation to longitudinal outcomes from childhood to adulthood. Her other line of research examines correlates of academic and activity motivational beliefs within the ecological system of development. Click here for Yangyang's full curriculum vitae. |
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Kayla Puente
DOCTORAL STUDENT Kayla is a fourth-year doctoral student at UCI’s School of Education, specializing in Human Development in Context (HDiC) with an Emphasis in Chicanx/Latinx Studies. Her research aims to understand how family and cultural strengths support the positive socioemotional and academic development of Latinx children and adolescents. Recently, her work has focused on these strength-based processes within STEM motivation and achievement. Click here for Kayla's full curriculum vitae. |
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Stephanie Soto-Lara
DOCTORAL STUDENT Stephanie is a Latina Ph.D. student specializing in Human Development in Context (HDiC) at the University of California, Irvine. She received her B.A. in Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research broadly focuses on adolescent development; underrepresented youth; parent support, organized afterschool activities, educational outcomes, and culture. Her goal is to conduct research through a strength-based perspective that will empower communities similar to the one she came from. Click here for Stephanie's full curriculum vitae. |