MEMBERS OF THE PSYCHOLOGY TEAM
I worked as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Faculty of Education (Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences) and the Institute of Human Performance at the University of Hong Kong before joining the Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences at the City University of Hong Kong in 2013. My research interests include 1) Language processing, 2) Speech production, 3) Speech motor learning and control, 4) Stress and speech performance, 5) Visual word recognition, and 6) Communication disorders. I use both behavioral and cognitive neuroscience approaches in my study.
My research focuses on aging and work, with emphases on emotional well-being of middle-aged workers, and psychological adjustment to retirement.
I am a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at the City University of Hong Kong. My primary research interest is in traumatology and resilience, in developing an in-depth knowledge about the factors that facilitate adjustments to life-threatening illnesses (e.g. cancer) and traumatic events (e.g. infectious disease epidemic). As a registered clinical psychologist and a researcher, I have benefits of conducting basic research to help understanding of applied problems as well as taking applied issues for explorations in empirical research. As a clinician, I have developed numerous therapy manuals related to my clinical interest. Examples include a grief therapy manual for bereaved adults after the SiChuan earthquake; intervention manuals to facilitate resilience for mother of children suffering from cerebral palsy, people receiving genetic colon cancer screening, and people recovered from psychiatric illnesses. I am serving as an advisor of Government departments and NGOs on both research and clinical practice, and I have been collaborating actively with my community partners to develop resilient and recovery programs for a variety of people with special needs. I have been conducting invited training workshops and presentations regularly in Hong Kong, China, Europe, and North America to share my research findings and clinical expertise.
Prof. Hui-Fang Chen is currently an Associate Professor in the City University of Hong Kong. She obtained a PhD degree from Quantitative Research Methods from the University of Denver and a Master's degree from Department of Psychology in the National Chung Cheng University with a Certificate of Elementary School Teacher from the Education Bureau in Taiwan. Her research mainly focuses on survey design and response behaviors in survey questionnaires as well as child development. Her research work includes psychometrics, Rasch analysis, item response theory and applied measurement in education, psychology and medicine.
Creativity has been a fascinating research topic for me as it often opens up new opportunities for interdisciplinary as well as cross cultural study.
Prof. Anna Hui is currently an associate professor and also the coordinator of the BDSS First Year Experience at the Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences, City University of Hong Kong. Research interests include creativity and innovation; motivation and self-regulation, gifted and creativity education, lifespan development in creativity. She also servesd as the Chairperson of the Ad Hoc Committee of Reviewing the Curriculum Guide of Early Childhood Education, Curriculum Development Council of the Education Bureau, HKSAR.
I received my PhD in Experimental Psychology from the University of Oxford. My research interests are in social cognition, focusing on the impact of social factors (social experiences, culture, etc.) on information processing, as well as the underlying mechanisms of information processing. I use a viariety of research methods such as behavioural, EEG, and surveys.
Prof. Julian Lai obtained his Bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Toronto. He joined the City University of Hong Kong to start his research career after graduating from the University of Hong Kong with a Ph.D. in psychoneuroimmunology. In addition to research on the psychophysiology of stress, he also engaged in research on topics associated with personality and social psychology, health psychology, and environmental psychology. One of Prof. Lai's major contributions is the adoption of salivary cortisol as a biomarker to examine the health impact of personal and interpersonal characteristics in Chinese populations. He is also one of the few scholars who pioneered research on the psychosocial determinants of pro-environmental behavior in the Chinese people. His major publications appear primarily in international journals in psychology. Prof. Lai has been serving as an expert reviewer for a number of prestigious journals in psychology and related disciplines. He was the Editor of the official journal of the Hong Kong Psychological Society (2009-2012) and is a former president of the Hong Kong Psychological Society (2004-2005). He has been an honorary research fellow of the Center on Behavioral Health of the University of Hong Kong.
Prof. Lai also has extensive experience in teaching and program planning, especially in taught postgraduate programs. He served as the program leader of the Postgraduate Diploma in Psychology for a number of years and was in charge of converting the program to the MSocSc in Applied Psychology in 2009. He has been serving as the program leader of the master program since then. Prof. Lai's teaching expertise concentrates in areas such as biological psychology, behavioral neuroscience, neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, and social psychology (e.g., the interaction between the social environment and psychological processes in determining risk perception). He has also served as the external examiner of various courses and programs offered by other universities in Hong Kong.
Kin-Kit (Ben) Li joined the Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences (formerly Department of Applied Social Studies) at City University of Hong Kong since 2009. He received his Ph.D. in sport and exercise psychology from Oregon State University in 2008. His research interests include sport and exercise psychology, physical activity promotion, vaccination, social gerontology, health communication, time perspective, and life-course theories.
Prof. Wang is a social psychologist, focusing on three broad research themes: 1) Objectification and Dehumanization; 2) Immoral Behaviour, Aggression, and Self-Interested Behaviour; 3) Inequality, Social Power, Social Dominance, and Hierarchy.
She uses a combination of methods, including laboratory and online experiments (e.g., face-perception, economic games, and behavioural paradigms), quasi-experiments/ special sample studies, surveys, and using ecological and archival data (e.g., Google Ngram).
Prof. Joseph Wu is currently an associate professor at the Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences, City University of Hong Kong. He is a registered teacher. He is an experienced teacher educator and has substantial knowledge in Hong Kong education system.
Sam Ye obtained his PhD from The University of Hong Kong. Before joining City University of Hong Kong, he was a Post-doctoral Fellow in The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include human values, social beliefs, positive psychology, and psychometrics.
Prof. Nancy Xiaonan Yu is a health psychologist with training in public health. Her research program has focused on resilience in adversities, by examining the resilience process and associated factors at the individual, dyadic, family, and community levels. Her resilience-oriented studies involve chronic illnesses (e.g., HIV, cancer, coronary heart disease), acculturation (e.g., migration, cross-border adjustment), losses (e.g., parental absence, bereavement), challenges (e.g., discrimination and stigma, parenting stress, aging), and crisis (e.g., natural disasasters). In addition, she has applied the community-based participatory research approach to develop and implement culturally sensitive interventions to promote resilience in stressful populations. With strong passion for interdisciplinary research, Prof. Yu has been working closely with researchers and practitioners in social work, public health, data science, and biomedical science.
I received my Ph.D. degree in Psychology from Dept. of Psychology at National University of Singapore. My research spans several areas in psychology and cognitive neuroscience, focusing on decision-making and social reasoning in different populations. I use model-based neuroimaging (e.g., fMRI/EEG) and paradigms from behavioral economics to better understand the neurocomputational bases of human decision-making in social contexts.
BOARD MEMBERS
