Su Yeong Kim

  • Professor
  • Human Development & Family Sciences

Dr. Kim is accepting new Ph.D. students for Fall 2028. Application deadline is December 1, 2027.

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Biography

Su Yeong Kim, Ph.D., is Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. She studies the intersection of family and cultural contexts in understanding the development of children of immigrants in the United States, with a focus on children of Chinese and Mexico-origin.  Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, Spencer Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, and Hogg Foundation for Mental Health.

Research

Dr. Su Yeong Kim examines how culturally relevant developmental processes (acculturation), cognitive processes (executive functioning), and physiological (cortisol, inflammation) and cultural stressors (discrimination) directly, indirectly, or interactively influence parent-child relationships (parenting, tiger parenting, father-child relationships) and adjustment transitions and outcomes (academic achievement, depressive symptoms) in minoritized adolescents and young adults. She also develops and tests the measurement invariance of culturally relevant measures for use with minoritized groups. For example, she developed measures of language brokering to capture the subjective experiences of adolescents translating for monolingual, immigrant parents with limited English skills. 

Dr. Kim's research on language brokering among Mexican American adolescents reveals that children experience both a sense of burden and efficacy in translating for their non-English fluent, Spanish-speaking parents, and that their perceptions of the language brokering experience relate directly to their socio-emotional adjustment, executive function, and allostatic load.

Dr. Kim's research has revealed that the commonly held perception of Asian American parents as “tiger parents” being responsible for producing child prodigies is inaccurate. In fact, her eight year longitudinal study of Chinese American families demonstrate supportive parenting as the most common type of parenting leading to the most optimal outcomes in terms of both academic and socio-emotional adjustment in Chinese American adolescents. 

Research Areas

  • Relationships, Families and Youth
  • Human Development
  • Culture, Inequality or Resilience

Fields of Interest

  • Adolescence and Young Adulthood
  • Adult Development
  • Biobehavioral Processes and Health
  • Child and Adolescent Health
  • Contexts of Human Development
  • Diversity and Culture
  • Interpersonal Relationships
  • Parenting & Caregiving

Centers and Institutes

  • Population Research Center

Education

  • Postdoctoral Fellow, Prevention Research Center, Arizona State University
  • Ph.D., Human Development, University of California, Davis
  • B.A., Psychology (Departmental Honors), University of Southern California
  • B.S., Business Administration (Information Systems), University of Southern California

Publications

Awards

  • Distinguished Career Contributions to Research Award, American Psychological Association’s Division 45 (Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity and Race), 2024
  • Mentorship and Integrity Award, Society for Research in Child Development Asian Caucus, 2023
  • Carolyn Attneave Diversity Award, American Psychological Association’s Division 43 (Society for Couple and Family Psychology), 2022

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