Valda Han

Valda Han is a fourth-year Psychobiology student researching family dynamics in Dr. Rena Repetti’s clinical psychology lab under the guidance of Galen McNeil and Dr. Repetti. Her participation in the Psychology Research Opportunities Program during her third year at UCLA, during which she studied how mothers’ depressive symptoms affect their children’s socioemotional development, ignited her passion for clinical psychology research. Her current research project for the Undergraduate Research Scholars Program revolves around instances of compassion between married couples in the Los Angeles area. Using videos collected from a large-scale study conducted by the Center on the Everyday Lives of Families at UCLA, she observes different aspects of marital compassion, such as how couples display marital compassion and how partners respond to each other’s compassion. She hopes to be able to connect her project to the broader scheme of family dynamics, in particular how marital compassion affects the couple and their family. In the future, she aspires to earn a PhD in Clinical Psychology and pursue a career in academia or clinical work.