People

Kexin Zhao  '24

(Project Coordinator)

Kexin (Hometown: Zhuhai, Guangdong, China) graduated from Wellesley in with double majors in Psychology and EALC  (Chinese). She helped to launch the CAFE project from its earliest stages. Besides working in the psychology field and completing a thesis in Psychology on the topic of Human Sexual Behaviors, Kexin is also a huge addict to crime fiction and juben sha, a topic she wrote her Chinese literature thesis on.

Anna Huang '25

Anna (Jiaying) is double majoring in Biochemistry and Women and Gender Studies. In her free time she enjoys knitting, painting, taking pictures, practicing Chinese calligraphy, and is an avid reader and writer of fanfiction.

Ella Chen '27

Ella (she/her) is an Econ major and Psychology minor from Beijing, China. She went to high school in Southern California and loves dancing, baking, and trying new restaurants.

Wenhan Xue '26

Wenhan is an MAS major and Psychology minor from Shenzhen, China. She enjoys taking a nap whenever she can.

Emily Shi '27

Emily is an Economics Major from Beijing.

 Julie He '27

Julie (she/her) is a Psychology/Economics major who lives in Boston and Toronto. She enjoys reading, hanging out with friends, walking around Lake Waban, and napping in her dorm!

Becky Chen '25

Becky is a senior double majoring in Computer Science and Psychology. In her free time, she likes going to movies, listening to music, and practicing the saxophone.

Helena Cao '26

Helena (Hailin) Cao is a psychology and anthropology double major. She likes tea tasting and exploring recipes from different restaurants at home. Her fun fact is that she can hold two pens with her jaw. 

Takami Harano '25

Takami (she/her) is a Neuroscience major passionate about how neurobiological factors, such as brain development and the effects of trauma, impact children's emotional and cognitive health. In her free time, she enjoys napping, learning new languages, voiceovering plushies, and taking walks around the beautiful campus.

Tingjen Hsieh '25

Tingjen is majoring in Psychology and minoring in Statistics. Originally from Taiwan, she enjoys learning about family systems through research and working with children. On campus, she can be found playing guitar in Wellesley BlueJazz, rock climbing, enjoying picnics by the lake, and cooking with her friends from Wellesley's Taiwanese Org.

Emily Shang '27

Emily (she/her) is a Psychology/Biology major from Brookline, MA. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, gardening, drinking coffee, and spending time with friends!

Marie Kung '27

Marie Kung is a Biological Sciences major from the class of 2027. She is from Short Hills, NJ, but her family recently moved to Massachusetts. She loves to run, play with her mini goldendoodle, and watch The Office!

Samantha Khemlani '28

Samantha Khemlani is a First-Year majoring in Psychology and Chemistry. In her free time, she loves to learn new languages, bake with friends, and go for runs around Wellesley!

Sherry Sze '27

Sherry is a sophomore double majoring in Psychology and Philosophy. She's from the South Shore of Massachusetts and enjoys exploring new restaurants, collecting trinkets, and making matcha lattes. 

Christina Ding '28

Christina is a freshman from Palo Alto, California interested in studying sociology and data science. In her free time, she enjoys reading, and playing the piano, and making ramen with friends. 

Tina Zhang '28

Tina is a freshman interested in majoring in Psychology and Sociology. She is from Beijing, China, but her family is now living in North Carolina. In her free time she enjoys writing, dancing, and city walking.

Jane Pak '16

Since graduating, Jane has explored various paths: working in People Operations, earning a Master's in Behavioral Science, and becoming a solopreneur as a life coach. They've lived in cities across the U.S. and abroad while engaging in personal healing through therapy, meditation, psychedelics, and more. 

At Wellesley, Jane supported the AAPA Undergraduate Consortium and fondly remembers attending Dr. Chen's initial presentation, inspired by his earnest approach before his lab even officially began.

  Cordelia Zhong  '17

After completing a YenChing Fellowship at the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Cordelia returned to Boston, working in clinical research at Massachusetts General Hospital, the Wellesley Centers for Women, and the Hassenfeld Child Health Innovation Institute. Currently, Cordelia is a second-year doctoral student in counseling psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University.

While at Wellesley, Cordelia collaborated with Dr. Chen and Karen Shih on an implementation trial of the AWARE intervention, presenting their work at the 2017 Ruhlman Conference.

Michelle M. Wang '17

After two years as a lab manager at Stanford, Michelle began her Ph.D. at New York University, where she studied children’s reasoning about social categories, focusing on gender stereotypes.

During Michelle's time at Wellesley, she contributed to the Family Development Project and enjoyed recruitment day in Boston’s Chinatown with the team and decorating the lab with Emily before graduation.

Xue Fang Deng '21

After graduating, Xue Fang completed a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in Taiwan before starting a Ph.D. in Applied Developmental Psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She focuses on the positive development of underrepresented immigrant youth and families. 

Xue Fang joined the lab during the final stages of the Family Development Project and enjoyed coding calibration meetings with UC Berkeley collaborators for the "Love and Care" study.

  Hailing Ding '23

Hailing works as the lab manager at the Yale Child Study Center’s Affective Youth Lab led by Dr. Wan-Ling Tseng, studying childhood irritability.

One of Hailing’s favorite memories from the lab was when the lab launched the CAFE Study in the Summer of 2022 and celebrated their first few milestones together with cupcakes and a fruit tart! It was a steep learning curve to administer interviews to families, but she really appreciated the support from her lab mates and Professor Chen.