Rate My Professor Jenny Vaydich

Jenny Lee Vaydich, PhD, is Associate Professor of Psychology and Chair of Research Psychology and Clinical Psychology at Seattle Pacific University, where she joined as Assistant Professor in 2015 and has since been promoted. A licensed clinical psychologist, her academic journey includes a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Notre Dame in 2011, an MA in Counseling Psychology from Notre Dame in 2008, and a BA in Psychology from St. Olaf College in 2004. Before SPU, she held the position of Research Fellow at the Parenting Research Group, University of Auckland, New Zealand from 2013 to 2015, team-teaching courses on child and adolescent development. Earlier, from 2011 to 2013, she served as Assistant Professor of Psychology at Rhodes College, Memphis, Tennessee, teaching foundational psychology, disorders, counseling, and emotion socialization seminars.

Dr. Vaydich's research focuses on developmental psychopathology, bridging clinical and developmental psychology through studies of emotion socialization in parent-child relationships and its impact on emotion regulation. Her work investigates how these dynamics influence aggression, depression, and anxiety in children and adolescents, alongside cultural variations in parental emotion socialization and associations with physiological and neuroendocrine responses to stress. Directing the Child and Adolescent Laboratory at SPU, current projects explore parent-adolescent conflict's effects on mental and physical health, parental criticism and depressive symptoms, parental attachment and disordered eating in late adolescence, and early parenting's role in emotional functioning. Key publications include "Disordered eating: The effects of parental attachment and the mediating role of emotion dysregulation" (Journal of American College Health, 2020; with Carpenter, Schwark, Molina), "Parenting intervention needs and perceived barriers among Korean immigrant parents in New Zealand" (Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 2018; with Keown), "A qualitative study of coping strategies among Korean immigrants in New Zealand" (New Zealand Journal of Psychology, in press; with Lee), and earlier contributions like "Moral development and behavior under the spotlight of the neurobiological sciences" (Journal of Moral Education, 2008; with Narvaez). She teaches clinical and developmental psychology courses from childhood through adolescence, including psychological disorders, child and adolescent development, advanced research methods, and counseling theory.