NCID-1455
Becky Wai-Ling Packard
Professor of Psychology and Education
Mount Holyoke College
Education/Degree:
1 Educational Psychology (Michigan State University)
About
Becky Wai-Ling Packard studies mentoring, persistence, and inclusion, with a focus on STEM fields and the experiences of underrepresented groups (e.g., first-generation college students, community college transfer students, people of color, and women in technical fields). She earned her PhD in educational psychology from Michigan State University and her BA in psychology from the University of Michigan. She has served as a campus leader in many roles and as a resource to dozens of other campuses.
Current Work
Dr. Packard studies how mentors, advisors, professors, and students, interact with each other, and how they come away from those interactions feeling valued or marginalized. One focus of the research is to understand the experiences people have when engaging in mentoring or advising, while another is to identify structures and systems that are more apt to support constructive interactions in sustainable ways. Recently she has focused on departmental and institutional climate as a lever for student and faculty success, as well as STEM reform initiatives.
Research Area Keyword(s)
climate, identity, Mentoring, persistence, STEM