The Team

Tiffany Yip

Principal Investigator

Tiffany Yip, Ph.D. is a Professor of Psychology at Fordham University. She received her undergraduate degree in Psychology at Cornell University, earned her MA and PhD in Psychology at NYU, and completed a NIMH and NSF-funded postdoctoral fellowship in the Psychology Department at the University of Michigan. Her research on ethnic identity, discrimination, and sleep among minority adolescents and young adults has been published in American Psychologist, Child Development, Developmental Psychology, and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Dr. Yip currently serves as an Associate Editor for Child Development and the Asian American Journal of Psychology. Dr. Yip is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, Division 7 (Developmental Psychology) and Division 45 (Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity and Race) and her research has been funded by NICHD, NIMHD, NIMH, and NSF.

Zhenqiang Zhao

Postdoctoral Fellow

Zhenqiang Zhao is a postdoctoral fellow in the Psychology Department at Fordham University. He received his doctoral degree in Family Studies and Human Development at University of Arizona. His research broadly focuses on the positive development of sexual orientation and gender diversity among youth. He is particularly interested in 1) sexual orientation and gender identity disclosure and concealment procedures in diverse social contexts (e.g., family, school), and 2) intersectionality of multiple minority identities (e.g., race/ethnicity) as well as its impact on sexual and gender minority youth’s developmental adjustment.

Jinjin Yan

Postdoctoral Fellow

Jinjin Yan received her doctoral degree in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests broadly center on understanding ethnic minority families’ positive adaptation through the lens of culture. In one line of research, she investigates how acculturation and enculturation experiences influence positive psychosocial adjustment among ethnic minority families. Her second research line is to identify risk factors (e.g., cultural stressors and parental stressors) and resilience factors (e.g., heritage cultural values and orientation) in ethnic minority youth’s positive adaptation.

Kyle Lorenzo

Graduate Research Assistant

Kyle Lorenzo is currently a 3rd-year graduate student in the Applied Developmental Psychology program at Fordham University. He received his BAs in Psychology and Biological Sciences with minors in Cognitive Sciences and International Studies at North Carolina State University. Kyle’s research interests include interdisciplinary approaches to exploring health disparities and identity development among racial/ethnic minority youth.

Shadane Johnson

Graduate Research Assistant

Shadane Johnson is currently a 2nd-year graduate student in the Applied Development program. She received her BA in Psychology at Penn State. Her research interests include exploring how context and sociocultural factors impact identity and adjustment in minority youth.

Jiwoon Bae

Graduate Research Assistant

Jiwoon Bae is a 2nd-year doctoral student in the Applied Developmental Psychology program. He received his B.A. in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests include exploring individual, social, and broader ecological factors to promote resilience among ethnic-racial minority youth to flourish in under-resourced environments. Specifically, he is interested in how contextual and sociocultural factors affect ethnic-racial minority youth’s response to adversity. He hopes that his program of research will ultimately help ethnic-racial minority youth to identify optimal coping methods while accounting for contextual (e.g., social and organizational environments) and sociocultural factors (e.g., ethnic-racial identity, Asian values) in dealing with negative mental health outcomes.

Natalie Hussein

Graduate Research Assistant

Natalie Hussein is currently a first-year student in the Applied Developmental Psychology Program. She received a BS in Psychology and a BA in Public Policy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research interests include exploring the impact of socialization, family processes, and macro-level sociocultural on identity perception and wellbeing among racial/ethnic minority adolescents.

Maddie Bradley

Lab Manager

Maddie Bradley received her BA in Psychology with minors in Sociology and Gender & Women's Studies from Emmanuel College in Boston, MA. As an undergraduate, she worked as a research assistant in Dr. Helen MacDonald's Lab at Emmanuel College and at the Developmental Risk and Cultural Resilience Laboratory at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. She presented her senior honors thesis on the implications of holding a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) intervention with college students online. Her research interests include resilience, mindfulness, mental health disparities across diverse groups, and social psychology. She plans to pursue her Ph.D. in Social or Developmental Psychology.

Jiawei (Ada) Wu

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Jiawei (Ada) Wu is a junior at Fordham University Rose Hill campus majoring in Psychology. She is interested in studying clinical psychology and hopes to gain further education in psychology. Ada is especially interested in mental health problems and related physical conditions among minority groups in society. She hopes to learn more about the research process and gain a better understanding of health concerns in minorities. Ada hopes to receive a Ph.D. in psychology and become a professor to educate future generations about the importance of mental well-being in the future.

Esha Hafeez

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Esha Hafeez is a Psychology major on the Pre-Health track in her senior year at FCLC. She joined the Youth Development in Diverse Contexts Lab in the summer of 2022 and intends to pursue research pertaining to the effects of everyday external influences on the development of today's youth. Esha currently works for Fordham University in both the IT department and the Covid/Vaccination clinic. In addition to that, as a present Urdu and Hindi Interpreter for medical patients in need, Esha aspires to help make the healthcare system as accessible and efficient as possible for all. She also seeks to raise psychological diagnoses to a higher pedestal when assessing different diseases to ensure that the most appropriate and effective treatment options are provided to patients around the world. Esha is quite passionate about the physical and psychological aspects of the human body and hopes to one day decrease the gender gap in the Orthopedic specialty. She intends to get into medical school and pursue her dream of becoming an Orthopedic surgeon.

Tenzing Choeying

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Tenzing Choeying is a junior pursuing a B.S. in Psychology. She has volunteered for the Himalayan youth since high school and tutored them during her college career. Tenzing is interested in anxiety, CBT, depression, and mindfulness Interventions. After graduation, Tenzing plans to continue her education in counseling psychology. During her free time, Tenzing enjoys baking, reading, jamming to music, doing skincare, and being with friends and family. 

Courtney Cail

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Courtney Cail is a senior at Fordham University Rose Hill pursuing a double major in chemistry and psychology. Her research interests include adolescent anxiety disorders, and she is currently working on her Honors Thesis in psychology concerning boredom in adolescents and its relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. Courtney looks forward to gaining more research experience within a lab group and plans on applying for PhD programs in clinical psychology in the near future. 

Grace Gagliardi

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Grace Gagliardi is a third-year FCRH student from Philadelphia, pursuing a major in Psychology
and a minor in Marketing. Grace is a member of Fordham’s chapter of the Psi Chi Psychology
Honors Society and the Psychology Department’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Advisory
Council, as well as an Orientation Leader and a Transfer Mentor. Her research interests include
the social, academic, psychological, and environmental factors that persuade an individual’s
development in their identity — specifically into gender and sexual orientations and
psychosocial pathways. She is passionate about equity advocacy for marginalized youth, and she
is excited to contribute to and learn from Dr. Yip’s YDDC lab starting in the Spring 2023
semester.

Manaal Ahmed

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Manaal Ahmed is a junior at Fordham Rose Hill studying Psychology on the Pre-Health track. In her involvement with YDDC, she hopes to help bring greater awareness to the Fordham community of the experiences and mental health of minority youth. After graduation, Manaal plans on attending medical school to later specialize in immunology/allergy. Outside of the lab, she writes poetry and loves spending time with her family and friends. 

Laura Rodriguez

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Laura Rodriguez is a third-year student at Fordham College Rose Hill pursuing a double major in psychology and philosophy. She works at the Counseling and Psychological Services Center at Rose Hill and serves as head mentor for the Mentoring Latinas program at Rose Hill. As a member of the Engaged Leaders Fellowship in the CCEL office, Laura is also conducting social justice research on the effects of intrinsic motivation on Bronx literacy rates. Laura is interested in Applied Developmental Psychology and aspires to mitigate inequities in mental health care for people from underserved backgrounds.

Anna Rubio Rodriguez

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Anna Rubio Rodriguez is a junior at Fordham Lincoln Center pursuing a B.S. in psychology and
a B.A. in English. She is very excited to join the YDCC lab, and her further research interests
include marital dynamics with an emphasis on Latinx communities. After graduation, Anna plans
to pursue a graduate degree in Marriage and Family Counseling.

Enru (Gia) Wang

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Gia Wang is a junior at Fordham University Lincoln Center double majoring in Psychology and Visual Art. She is very excited to join the YDDC lab this year, and her research interests are family trauma counseling and EMDR. She hopes to pursue a PsyD or a PhD in clinical psychology after graduating from Fordham. In her free time, she enjoys working out at the gym or surfing with her friends.