In the span of just 12 months, the assistant professor of psychology has been honored by the Asian American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Association Minority Fellowship Program.
In August, Assistant Professor of Psychology Shu-wen Wang will receive her second early career award from a major psychological organization in a one-year timeframe. At the upcoming American Psychological Association’s 125th annual convention in Washington, D.C., the APA’s Minority Fellowship Program will recognize Wang for her Distinguished Contribution to Science. This follows the Early Career Award for Distinguished Contributions in Research from the Asian American Psychological Association (AAPA) she received at their annual convention last August.
The AAPA and APA-MFP awards consider psychologists who are less than eight years and between five and ten years removed from receiving their Ph.D., respectively. Wang is honored to receive both awards just four and five years after receiving her Ph.D in clinical psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research, which examines the cultural differences in basic social-emotional processes between Asian-American and European-American samples that contribute to mental and physical health disparities, earned recognition from two organizations at the vanguard of her field.
“The awards come from national organizations doing important work at the forefront of advancing cultural, racial, and ethnic minority psychology research as well as advocating for the mental-health needs of underserved and marginalized groups,” said Wang, who has been teaching at Haverford since 2012. “I am so very proud to be honored by these two organizations that are making such an impact on the psychology and mental-health landscape.”
Wang is grateful to have worked alongside generous departmental colleagues as well as with her engaging students, from whom she has selected numerous research assistants.
“These awards—in honoring and acknowledging my work—are also, then, honoring and acknowledging the work of my students,” she explained. “These students have made valuable contributions to my program of research, and have also been my co-authors on presentations at scientific conferences as well as on peer-reviewed journal articles.”
In May, Wang attended the annual convention of the Association for Psychological Science with two former students, Divya Shiv and Laura Marino (both ’16). Together, the two alumnae gave a poster presentation on their senior thesis research. The visit coincided with Wang’s preparation of a manuscript that includes the data from the same alums’ thesis research. (Shiv and Marino will receive credit as co-authors.) Zara Atal ’14, Wang’s first Haverford thesis advisee, also teamed up with her on a paper published just this month in a peer-reviewed journal on which Atal was lead author.
After a remarkable streak of recognition just five years after receiving her Ph.D., Wang will teach three courses next semester: “Cultural Psychology,” “Stress and Coping,” and “Senior Research Tutorial in Cultural Psychology.” As before, she anticipates benefiting from students who encourage her “to be a better scientist and a better teacher asking better questions.”
