She earned her B.A. in Child Development from the University of Minnesota, her M.A. and Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Michigan State University, and was also a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Jena in Germany for three years. Her research focuses on adolescent development in various family and cultural contexts. She has published and presented studies concerning issues of ethnic identity, autonomy, acculturation, and competence of adolescents in the U.S. and Germany. See less