Pauline Ho

Pauline is a 2024 PhD in the Human Development area of the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Currently, Dr. Ho is a visiting assistant professor at Reed College in Portland,Oregon.  Advised by Dr. Brad Brown, Pauline’s research interest broadly focuses on  identity development in adolescence and emerging adulthood. Her current work focuses on 4 key aspects of identity development: 1) timing (when does identity develops), 2) content (what develops), 3) process (how does it develop), and its impact (how identity development affects adolescent health and well-being.

Pauline graduated cum laude from the University of California, Irvine where she double majored in Education Sciences and Social Policy and Public Service. Her research at UC Irvine primarily focused on investigating effective pedagogy for teaching English and discipline-specific knowledge to diverse student learners. Now, she is interested in how emerging adults, particularly racial and ethnic minorities, become who they are and how their sense of identities impact their well-being and other important decisions in their lives (e.g. choosing a college major or occupation). Her research aims to generate insights, both conceptually and empirically, to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of identity development to inform programmatic interventions in the areas of student affairs and mental health practices.

Research interests:

Identity development in adolescence and emerging adulthood, particularly for ethnic and racial minority youth

· Narrative psychology, identity, and methods

· Mixed methods research, quantitative and qualitative approaches to stability and change

· Educational experience of under-represented ethnic minority students, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields

Education:

• B.A. Education Sciences, University of California, Irvine, 2017
• B.A. Social Policy and Public Service, University of California, Irvine, 2017
• M.S. Educational Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2020

Awards and Honors:

• 2024 Award for Mentoring Undergraduates in Research, Scholarly and Creative Activities
• UW-Madison’s Education Graduate (Ed-GRS) Fellowship
• Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) Fellowship
• Ford Predoctoral Fellowship 2018 Honorable Mention
• NSF’s Graduate Research Fellowship 2017 Honorable Mention
• AERA 2017 Annual Meeting’s Undergraduate Fellow
• 2017 Who’s Who in Asian American Communities (WWAAC)’s Leaders & Legends Honoree

Grants Awarded:

2023 UW-Madison’s Thora Wick Homme Memorial Scholarship Recipient

2023 ISRI Conference’s Best Student Research Awards (2 papers)

2023 UW-Madison’s Patricia and Michael Busk Travel Fellowship Award

2020 Global Health Institute Graduate Student Research Award

2020 APAGS Psychological Science Research Grant (Diversity)

Publications:

• Ho, P., Chen, K., Shao, A., Bao, L., Ai, A., Tarfa, A.,…Brown, L. (in press). A mixed methods study of public perception of social distancing: Integrating qualitative and computational analyses for text data. Journal of Mixed Methods Research.
• Chen, K., Bao, L., Shao, A., Ho, P., Yang, S., Wirz, C., … Brown, L. (2020). How public perceptions of social distancing evolved over a critical time period: Communications lessons learnt from the American state of Wisconsin. Journal of Science Communication, 19(5), A11.
• Wirz, C. D., Cate, A., Brauer, M., Brossard, D., Brown, L. D., Chen, K., Ho, P., Luter, D. G., Madden, H., Schoenborn, S., Shaw, B., Sprinkel, C., Stanley, D., & Sumi, G.  (2022). Science communication during COVID-19: when theory meets practice and best practices meet reality. Journal of Science Communication, 21(3), N01.

Conference presentations:

• Ho, P. & Brown, B. (2023, June). Ethnic and Racial Identity Trajectories from Childhood to Emerging Adulthood among African American College Students. Paper accepted for presentation at the annual meeting of the International Society for Research on Identity, Boston, MA.
• *Li, J., *Yao, L. & Ho, P. (2023, June). What it means to be “Asian American?”: Perspective of Asian Americans’ young adults on identification and its meanings. Paper accepted for presentation at the annual meeting of the International Society for Research on Identity, Boston, MA.
• Ho, P., Brown, B., Lee, F., Scott, L. & Contreras, P. (2021, April). Ethnic and Racial Identity Change and Development: A Retrospective Longitudinal Study. Paper presented at the 2021 AERA Annual Conference.
• Chen, K., Bao, L., Shao, A., Ho, P., Yang, S., Wirz, C.D., Brossard, D., Brauer, M. & Brown, L.D. (2020, December). How public perceptions of social distancing evolved over a critical time period: Communications lessons learnt from the American State of Wisconsin. Paper presented at the World Conference on Science Literacy, Beijing, China.
• Ho, P. & Brown, B. (2020, October). Ethnic and Racial Identity Development in College: A Developmental-Contextual Approach. Paper presented at the Association for the Study of Higher Education’s (ASHE) 45th Annual Conference.
• Ho, P. & Brown, B. (2020, August 6-9). Ethnic and racial identity development in college: Making meaning at PWIs. [Poster session canceled]. 2020 American Psychological Association Convention, Washington, D.C.