Irene Tung, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
California State University, Dominguez Hills
✉  itungphan@csudh.edu  | Curriculum Vitae | Lab Website

ABOUT

I am a licensed clinical psychologist with interests in developmental psychopathology, early life stress, and resilience and prevention. I received my PhD in Clinical Psychology from UCLA and completed my predoctoral clinical internship and postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh Western Psychiatric Hospital. I am now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at California State University Dominguez Hills, where I direct the Promoting Early Resilience in Children's Mental Health (PERCH) lab. I am highly invested in mentoring students in research and advocating for equitable training pathways for careers in psychological science. In addition to research and research training, I specialize in evidence-based treatments for children and adolescents with externalizing behaviors. I currently teach the graduate seminars, Child and Adolescent Treatment: Theories and Practice, Addictions Counseling, and Crisis and Trauma: Theories and Interventions. 

RESEARCH INTERESTS

My research centers on the impact of early stress exposure on the development of emotional reactivity and risky externalizing-spectrum behaviors. My work is guided by two overarching questions: 

1. How do life stressors during sensitive periods of development, such as during pregnancy and early childhood, shape the way individuals perceive and react to their social environments? 

2. What modifiable, protective factors in family and community settings help to promote stress resilience and interrupt developmental pathways of risk? 

The goal of this research is to inform strengths-based preventative efforts to interrupt cycles of stress-related mental health inequities and support the development of psychological wellbeing for children and families living with chronic life stressors. My work has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), and the American Psychological Foundation (APF), and my scientific contributions have been recognized by the American Psychological Association and the Research Society on Alcoholism.

CURRENT PROJECTS (visit our lab website: www.perchresearch.org)

I am currently directing two studies, funded by a NIMH K01 Early Career Award and APF Visionary Grant Award, that are investigating the prenatal period as a unique window of opportunity for promoting daily stress resilience for mothers and their children. We are working with two racially diverse samples of pregnant women and leveraging a combination of lab-based and ambulatory assessment methods to understand how daily life stressors and sources of support impact stress physiology during pregnancy and offspring emotion regulation outcomes.

To learn more about my current active projects, visit the PERCH Lab website. For an overview of my past research, click the 'Research' tab. You can browse a list of my published work and conference presentations in the 'Publications' and 'Presentations' tabs.