معرفی
Yang Qu is an Associate Professor at Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy and holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Psychology. He is also a Faculty Associate at the Institute for Policy Research. His research integrates developmental psychology, cultural psychology, and neuroscience to study how sociocultural contexts shape adolescent development, with a focus on cultural differences in academic, social, and emotional development, and parental influences on adolescents’ beliefs and brain development. Qu earned his PhD in Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and completed a postdoc at Stanford University.
- Education:
- Postdoc in Psychology, Stanford University (2016-2018)
- PhD in Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2016)
- MS in Statistics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2013)
- MA in Psychology, New York University (2010)
- BS in Psychology, Fudan University (2008)
Research Interests: Qu examines the psychological and neural mechanisms underlying cultural differences in adolescent development and the role of parents in shaping adolescents’ beliefs and brain development. His work combines survey, experimental, observational, and neuroimaging methods. Key themes include parent-child neural connectivity, family cohesion, and the impact of cultural values like familism on youth outcomes.
Articles Trends: Recent studies highlight the interplay between neural mechanisms (e.g., hippocampal volume, reward sensitivity) and sociocultural factors (e.g., family obligation, neighborhood safety). His work often emphasizes longitudinal designs and cross-cultural comparisons, with implications for educational and mental health interventions.
- Awards:
- 2023 Early Career Award (Society for the Study of Human Development)
- 2020 NSF CAREER Award
- 2020 Rising Star Award (Association for Psychological Science)
Advising & Grants: Qu mentors numerous doctoral and postdoctoral students, including Zeyi Shi and Varun Devakonda. He leads projects funded by the NSF and other agencies, focusing on cultural neuroscience and adolescent development. His work has been featured in outlets like Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.
Labs/Teams: Director of the Culture, Brain, and Human Development Lab, which explores cultural influences on brain-behavior relationships during development.
