Julia Yan, Ph.D.

Field: Family Studies and Human Relationships, Human Development
Areas of Focus: Child Development, Family Relationships, Mental Health

Expertise

• Human development
• Child development
• Family relations
• Child mental health
• Child social development
• Father-child relationships
• Quantitative methods

Bio

Dr. Julia Yan is an assistant professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Utah State University. She received a Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Science and a M.A.S. in Applied Statistics from The Ohio State University. Her undergraduate degree was in psychology from Beijing Normal University.

Dr. Yan's research interests include child social-emotional development in the family context and fathering behaviors. Her research focuses on fathers’, mothers’, and children’s own contributions in social-emotional development. Informed by a family systems perspective and a developmental psychopathology perspective, she is particularly interested in understanding what behaviors and characteristics of fathers and mothers, together with family dynamics, may collectively cultivate adaptive emotional skills and protect against biological vulnerabilities. She also examines the factors that collectively and interactively shape fathers’ and mothers’ parenting behaviors and adjustments at the transition to parenthood. She incorporates advanced quantitative methods into her substantive work to address innovative questions about parenting and child development, and to model the complex reality more precisely. She applies structural equation modeling (SEM) and hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) in longitudinal data, dyadic/hierarchical data, and physiological data to understand how family processes and dynamics shape child development over time. Yan applies methodological expertise not only through conducting research, but also via teaching, mentoring, consulting, and developing research collaborations.