Qi Wang

Qi Wang is Professor of Human Development and Psychology at Cornell University. She directs the Culture and Cognition Lab (https://culcogcornell.org/). Her research integrates developmental, cognitive, and sociocultural perspectives to examine the mechanisms responsible for the development of autobiographical memory. She has undertaken extensive studies to examine how cultural variables sustain autobiographical memory by affecting information processing at the level of the individual and by shaping social practices of remembering between individuals (e.g., sharing memory narratives between parents and children). Her other lines of work include the study of future thinking, self-concept, and emotion knowledge in cultural contexts. Wang has also pioneered research to examine the impact of the Internet and social media as a cultural force on autobiographical memory reconstruction and the consequences for youth psychosocial functioning.

A graduate of Peking University, China, Qi Wang earned a Ph.D. in psychology in 2000 at Harvard University. She then joined the Cornell human development faculty as an assistant professor and was made a full professor in 2011. She has received many honors and awards, including the Young Scientist Award from the International Society for Study of Behavioral Development (2006), the Award for Distinguished Contributions to Early Research from the Society for Research in Child Development (2005), and the Outstanding Contribution to Research Award from SRCD Asian Caucus (2013). She has over one hundred and eighty publications in scientific journals and in volumes of collected works. Her single-authored book, The Autobiographical Self in Time and Culture (2013, Oxford University Press), has received outstanding reviews and is regarded as the definitive work on culture and autobiographical memory. It is praised as “a masterful integration of prominent themes in research and everyday life” (David Pillemer, book blurb), and “a prose text with the threads of a laboratory science paradigm and so many cross-cultural stories (that) makes for a thought-provoking and thoroughly enjoyable liberal arts tale” (McGovern, 2014, PsycCRITIQUES).