June 2026 Spotlight: Dr. Lydia HaRim Ahn
Dr. Lydia HaRim Ahn
Q: What drew you to work on Asians, Asian American children and youth, or another topic that is important to you now? What advice would you offer to someone starting out in the field and working in your area?
A: Growing up in North Carolina and South Korea was a significant factor that led me to become interested in research on Asian American youth. These experiences, as well as my interest in psychology, led me to join research labs during my undergraduate years at the University of Wisconsin--Madison. There, I joined a research lab on math education for youth and a lab conducting experiments to reduce racial bias. During my master’s program, I joined a research lab where I worked on a racial socialization intervention with Black families. Working with families directly as well as my clinical training during my PhD in psychodynamic therapy, which focuses on gaining insight into how childhood experiences shape adulthood, made me curious about the intersections among parenting, racial socialization, and mental health among Asian American youth and families.
I would not be where I am today without the support of my mentors. During my undergraduate years, Dr. Percival Matthews and Dr. Markus Brauer introduced me to the world of research. My master’s program with Dr. Howard Stevenson and Dr. Riana Anderson helped me to clarify my interest in studying minoritized families and racial socialization. During my PhD, my mentors, Dr. Dennis Kivlighan, Dr. Matt Miller, and Dr. Mia Smith-Bynum were pivotal in my understanding and commitment to research on parenting, racial socialization, and Asian American families. I am truly grateful for having such inspiring and supportive mentors.
Q: Describe a particular recent finding, current study, or recent publication and what makes you excited about it.
A: One of my ongoing projects is investigating parents’ emotion-centered ethnic-racial socialization in Chinese-heritage families, funded by the SRCD 2024 Small Grants for Early Career Scholars. Asian American children in the US must contend with historically pervasive narratives of the model minority stereotype and the perpetual foreigner stereotype as well as rhetoric and biases under ongoing geopolitical tensions between the US and China. It is critical to study factors that contribute to Asian American children’s coping and adjustment in the face of discrimination, which can elicit strong emotions. Our project focuses on parental socialization as a of the contributing factors and highlights parents’ emotion-related socialization practices that are integral to their ethnic-racial socialization in Chinese-heritage families. We have conducted qualitative interviews and observations with 35 families of parents and their 10- to 13-year-old children (20 Chinese American, 15 Chinese Australian) and are currently coding the data to identify families’ race- and emotion-related experiences, and their culturally salient, emotion-centered racial socialization strategies.
Q: Share your reflections on your interactions with the Asian Caucus.
A: As a counseling psychologist by training, I was often one of very few in my field attending SRCD conferences. I joined the Asian Caucus in graduate school, which led me to meet collaborators and friends in the field and helped me to feel a sense of belonging at SRCD. I remember attending the Asian Caucus events in graduate school when it was relatively smaller, and at the most recent SRCD, the room was packed! I highly recommend others to get involved – it is a space where you can meet and connect with others with similar interests.
Q: Any upcoming talks or presentations we should know about?
A: I will be attending the American Psychological Association conference in August 2026. I’ll be presenting with a number of my students from my research lab.
