Academic Background

I am Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology, Health & Gender at the American University of Paris. My university profile: https://www.aup.edu/profile/zgao

I received interdisciplinary training, with a PhD in historical, theoretical and critical studies of psychology followed by postdoctoral research in sociology and anthropology. 

Research Expertise

I am currently studying Chinese immigrants’ identity, belonging, and political participation. I apply interdisciplinary methods to situate these topics in racial relations which are in turn embedded in (trans)nationalism and (de)globalization. These political threads extend from my doctoral research on the history of psychology in China’s communist movement. While studying psychology in the China-globe dynamics at the empirical level, I have a theoretical interest in exploring the use of a “cultural politics” framework to bridge psychology and critical theory. 

I have published over 20 journal articles and book chapters in Review of General Psychology, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Social Anthropology, Narrative Inquiry, History of Psychology, History of Science, History of Education, and so on. I am guest editor of special issues of journal Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science (Springer) and journal Theory & Psychology (Sage). See my "Research" page and Google Scholar for more details.

Awards

Distinguished Early Career Contributions in Qualitative Inquiry Award, Quantitative and Qualitative Methods, Division 5 of the American Psychological Association, 2022

Early Career Award, Society for the History of Psychology, Division 26 of the American Psychological Association, 2022

Outstanding Early Career Psychologist Award (outside the US), International Psychology, Division 52 of American Psychological Association, 2020

Young Scholar Award, Cheiron: The International Society for the History of Behavioral and Social Sciences, 2019

Certificate of Academic Excellence, Canadian Psychological Association, 2019

Contact: zgao <at> aup.edu