Lan Chen

Lan Chen is a Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS) doctoral student in her fourth year at Penn State. From Hangzhou, China, Lan attended Zhejiang University where she received a bachelor’s degree in education with a minor in public administration in 2020. Lan gained research experience through the Center for Learning and Cognitive Science at Zhejiang University and as a research assistant at Florida State University. At both institutions, her research focused on understanding the relationship between helicopter parenting and adolescents’ mental health. Lan chose the HDFS doctoral program at Penn State where she could investigate family studies and adolescent development while participating in multidisciplinary work and receiving robust training in research methods.

Lan’s primary advisor at Penn State is Dr. Gregory Fosco. Her research focuses on understanding adolescence, which she describes as a developmental period marked by transformational changes that also make individuals vulnerable to long-term developmental risks. Lan is particularly drawn to investigate how parenting and parent-adolescent relationships may help uncover nuances in adolescent development by focusing on multiple timescales (i.e., developmental and daily time) and utilizing advanced statistical methods. She is employing Dr. Fosco’s Family Life Optimizing Well-Being (FLOW) dataset to conduct two related research papers and has found that autonomy-supportive parenting has long-term benefits for adolescent mental health and reduces affective reactivity to family cohesion. Additionally, she has led research papers exploring how adolescent behaviors and family relationships shape parenting practices. Lan has taken great care to strengthen her methodological approach. As a fellow in The Prevention and Methodology Training Program (PAMT), she has worked with Dr. Damon Jones to master multilevel modeling techniques, which will be crucial for using daily diary assessments in future research. Also, she is enrolled in a dual-title program in Social Data Analytics (SoDA), applying machine learning under Dr. Zachary Fisher to predict outcomes over longer periods.

Lan plans to continue research on the relationship between parenting and adolescent development after graduation. Her goal is to further elucidate how research advances can positively contribute to parenting and parent-adolescent relationships, thereby supporting youth and family well-being.