This month, we are delighted to introduce Dr. Maria S. Wong (mwong2@stevenson.edu) as our member in the spotlight. Maria is currently a Professor of Psychology at Stevenson University in Owings Mills, Maryland. She also serves as the Director of the Leadership Scholars Program and Faculty Fellow of the Zirkin Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Stevenson. Maria was the Co-Chair of the SRCD Teaching Institute in 2019 and 2021 and a member of the SRCD Teaching Committee.
- Can you write a couple sentences on some aspect of your career development: feel free to pick one or any other related question among these: a) what drew you to do work on Asians, Asian American children and youth, or another topic that is important to you now? b) who was an important mentor to you in this work, or an influential particular study in the field or in a related field? c) any particular advice or tips to someone starting out in the field who is doing work in your area?
Born and raised in Hong Kong, I immigrated to Canada when I was a teenager. My experience living in a multicultural environment had prompted me to study cultural psychology under Dr. Steve Heine at the University of British Columbia. While in graduate school, my research program focused on children’s socioemotional development within the family context as I was mentored by Dr. Marissa Diener and Dr. Russ Isabella (University of Utah), as well as Dr. Sarah Mangelsdorf, Dr. Kelly Bost, and Dr. Nancy McElwain (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign).
The opportunity to study children and adults of Asian descent came up again when I was an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA. My colleague Dr. Joey Fung and I were collaborators on a couple of grants that we received. More specifically, with the support from the Louisville Institute, Joey and I completed a study on the work-family balance of Chinese American church leaders using both qualitative and quantitative methods and published three studies on this topic. Turning to another project, supported by a grant from Fuller, Joey and I collaborated with Dr. Ping Yao from Peking University to study Chinese migrant children who resided in Beijing and examine how their attachment relationships and perceived social-class discrimination were related to their behavioral outcomes. The results of this study were presented at a SRCD symposium that I co-chaired with Dr. Cecilia Cheung from the University of California, Riverside and published in the Journal of Early Adolescence in 2019.
Fung, J., Lin, C., Joo, S., & Wong, M.S. (In press). Factors associated with burnout, marital conflict, and life satisfaction among Chinese American church leaders. Journal of Psychology and Theology.
Goranson, S., Wong, M.S., & Fung, J. (2020). The influence of cultural and generational differences on the ministry experience of Chinese American church leaders. Pastoral Psychology, 69, 11-28. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-019-00890-5
Song, R., Fung, J., Wong, M.S., & Yao, P. (2019). Attachment security as a moderator of perceived discrimination on behavioral outcomes among Chinese migrant children. The Journal of Early Adolescence. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272431619870604
Wong, M.S., Worthy, P., Fung, J., & Chen, E.-H. (2017). A qualitative analysis of the experience of female Chinese American church leaders: Associations with gender role, culture, and work-family balance. Pastoral Psychology, 66, 657-674. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-017-0773-1
- A short paragraph describing a particular recent finding, current study, or recent publication and what makes you excited about it. Feel free to describe its importance from any one or more of these lenses: a) research contribution; b) our knowledge about Asian or Asian American populations; c) our knowledge about other [understudied?] populations; d) practice or policy relevance.
Since I started working at Stevenson University in 2014, I have developed a strong interest in supporting students within the classroom setting and incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusion into my teaching. Recently, under my editorship, my collaborators and I published a two-volume eBook entitled Incorporating Diversity in Classroom Settings: Real and Engaging Examples for Various Psychology Courses for the Society for the Teaching of Psychology (STP; APA Division 2), with more than 70 activities related to diversity that psychology instructors could implement in their courses.
Wong, M.S., Weiner, L., Cerniak, J., & Yee, L.T.S. (Eds.). (2021). Incorporating diversity in classroom settings: Real and engaging examples for various psychology courses. (Vol 1: Ability, age, culture, ethnicity/race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status). Society for the Teaching of Psychology. http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/diverse1
Wong, M.S., Weiner, L., Cerniak, J., & Yee, L.T.S. (Eds.). (2021). Incorporating diversity in classroom settings: Real and engaging examples for various psychology courses. (Vol 2: Intersectionality). Society for the Teaching of Psychology.
http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/diverse2
At Stevenson, I co-lead the Conversations on Diversity series with my colleague Prof. Lauri Weiner from Counseling and Human Services for our students, faculty, and staff. As one of the Faculty Fellows of our new Zirkin Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, we facilitate numerous workshops during the year for faculty on various topics related to pedagogy. I am also a member of STP and the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network.
Finally, you could probably tell from my role as the Director of Leadership Scholars program that I am committed to cultivating leadership among my students! For my own professional development, I am very interested in topics related to women (especially minority) in leadership in the context of higher education.
- A weblink you prefer to share?
Twitter: @MariaWongPhD