Graduate students rely on internet research and word of mouth to hear about programs that align with their interests. For Hatice Gürsoy, word of mouth led her from the Republic of Türkiye to UMBC’s Culture, Child, and Adolescent Development Lab, when she was looking for developmental psychology doctoral programs that could support her interests in the resiliency of Muslim immigrants. “One of Dr. Charissa Cheah’s doctoral students also happened to be from Türkiye. She connected me with Dr. Cheah, and we bonded from that moment over my research interests,” says Gürsoy.

Gürsoy is not alone in her trajectory to Cheah’s lab. Students worldwide are drawn to lab founder and director Charissa Cheah’s hands-on approach to teaching, mentoring, and research. “I tell students that my lab is a vibrant space where they can build expertise in collaborative public impact research,” says Cheah, a professor of psychology. She studies adolescent social-emotional development and the well-being of families from minoritized backgrounds, emphasizing the experiences of those from Asian, Middle-Eastern, and North African heritage, which are frequently overlooked in psychology research, she says. 

To approach this seemingly broad array of topics, Cheah offers graduate students seven ongoing research projects to choose from, including the latest project—Asian Americans’ Resilience, Identity, and Socialization of Engagement (ARISE), which focuses on the impact of racism and discrimination on Chinese, Korean, and Filipino American families parents’ and adolescents’ relationships, multiple identities, racial-ethnic socialization, civic engagement, and development.

Earlier in 2024, Cheah was invited to the White House to present the latest findings on the ARISE project with the Office of Science and Technology Policy. “It is empowering to represent the voices of marginalized groups, especially early career scholars, and to speak with individuals who aim to use this information to shape policies that decrease bias and hate,” she shared there.

Mentoring through unprecedented changes

Thanks to Cheah’s approach to mentorship, Hyun Su Cho, Ph.D. ’24, applied developmental psychology, had the support she needed to navigate unprecedented changes like COVID-19, in-person and virtual classes, and welcoming a new child. “It can all be very overwhelming,” says Cho. “Charissa is very busy, but she always finds time for you.” 

Cho found her way to Cheah’s lab after reading her research while completing her master’s in developmental psychology at Seoul National University in South Korea. “I had the same master’s advisor as a former doctoral student in the lab and she introduced me to Dr. Cheah during a conference,” says Cho. “I was interested in parenting and world culture. Her lab offered opportunities to study multiple Asian communities.” 

Initially, Cho collaborated with Korean American families on the Immigrant Children’s Successful Transition and Adaptation Research project. Later, she became deeply involved in the ARISE project. This work led to several publications and funding awards to complete her dissertation.

Huiguang Ren, Ph.D. ’24, applied developmental psychology, also found his way to Cheah’s lab through a recommendation. As a master’s student in developmental psychology at East China Normal University, “I wasn’t sure whether to go straight into industry or continue with a Ph.D.,” says Ren. He sought guidance from his mentor, who was researching adolescent development in Shanghai with Cheah. Ren started at UMBC as a visiting scholar before joining the doctoral program. “After working with Dr. Cheah, I decided research is something that intrigues me, and it’s a career that I want to pursue. ” 

Passing on the skillset

Ren also worked on several projects in addition to ARISE. He helped set up the Strengthening Asian American Families’ Excellence and Resilience project, one of the first National Science Foundation grants to explore the influences of the COVID-19 outbreak on racial discrimination, identity development, and socialization. Ren and Cho managed classes, guided students through research methods, helped them develop scientific language, and showed them how to analyze the data they collected and disseminate it to families and scholars. He now has a faculty position at his alma mater but initially struggled with imposter syndrome about guiding undergraduates. “And then I realized I have mentored quite a few students during my time in Dr. Cheah’s lab,” Ren says. “And then I realized I have mentored quite a few students during my time in Dr. Cheah’s lab,” Ren says.

Gursoy is now in the fifth year of her doctoral program focused on the Identities of Muslim American Adolescents and their Growth and Excellence research study. This project explores the impact of identity, interpersonal relationships, racism, and cultural socialization factors on Muslim American development and adjustment. 

Like Cho and Ren, Gürsoy mentors undergraduates, modeling Cheah’s methods and plans on taking those skills with her. “Working with undergraduates is one of the things I love doing best. They are creative, curious, and are not afraid to tell you something that might not work,” says Gürsoy. “Dr. Cheah has been holding my hand throughout my journey. Helping me learn by giving me constructive feedback. I want to give the same kindness to our undergraduates.”

Learn more about UMBC’s psychology department.

Make the library your one-stop shop during crunch time this semester-- and make sure you relax and refuel with us before you hunker down at your favorite study spot. 

When: Wednesday, December 11th from 11am-2pm 

Where: AOK Library Atrium & Gallery

At StudyCon you will find things both fun and practical to help you prep for finals:

• Giveaways

• Snacks

• Drop-in course tutoring

• Computing Success tutoring 

• Advising resources

• Study tips

• Crafts

This event is brought to you by the AOK Library, Academic Success Center, Office of Health Promotion, Baltimore County Public Library, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Sorrento of Arbutus, Retriever Essentials, CNMS and Erickson School Advising, and UMBC Bookstore

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African cichlids, a group of thousands of freshwater fish species, present a wide range of distinctive mating and parental care behaviors. However, the mechanisms that drive these behaviors are poorly understood. Cheng-Yu Li, assistant professor of biological sciences and a member of the UM FIRST faculty cohort, and colleagues have discovered a new clue in this mystery and published their results in Current Biology. A wide range of vertebrate species exhibit versions of these behaviors, so Li and colleagues hope their research will contribute to a broader understanding of the neural mechanisms that are behind them. 

Using an African cichlid species, Astatotilapia burtoni, asthe model organism, the authors identified that a group or neurons called ciliated olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) are the key type of cell responsible for detecting female reproductive pheromones. They further pinpointed a specific pheromone receptor, Or113a, that regulates males’ reproductive behavior. 

In male cichlids, sensory neurons expressing the Or113a receptor detect cues derived from a pheromone called prostaglandin F_2ɑ, or PGF_2ɑ. PGF_2ɑ functions both as a female hormone that regulates female mating behavior and as a pheromone that attracts males when females are reproductively receptive. Knocking out their Or113a receptors limited males’ preference for water taken from near a sexually receptive female. Silencing the males’ relevant sensory neurons by knocking out a protein called Cnga2b eliminated the preference entirely. 

PGF_2ɑ on its own is attractive to males in some fish species, such as zebrafish and goldfish, however, but male A. burtoni cichlids are insensitive to PGF_2ɑ. This suggests that PGF_2ɑ must be converted into a different chemical in reproductive females or that more than one pheromone is involved in the male attraction response. That makes evolutionary sense, Li explains, because many species of cichlids and other fish living in the African Great Lakes may use PGF_2ɑ for pheromone signaling. If it was the only signal, there would be a high probability of interbreeding between cichlid species, or a male could mistakenly approach females of predator species. Using more than one signal would solve this problem. Li and colleagues are actively working on finding additional pheromone clues to further unravel this complex signaling system.

A puzzle worth brooding over 

Discovering a neurological mechanism driving males’ attraction to females was exciting for Li, but an unusual observation during their trials added to the study’s impact. Many cichlids “mouth brood,” or carry their eggs in their mouths for several weeks until the larvae can swim on their own. In most species, including the one used in Li’s study, the female is the exclusive mouth brooder. However, Li’s study found that males with mutations in the genes of cnga2b or or113a would take eggs into their mouths as a female would. But only 30 percent of the males who picked up eggs would mouth brood them until hatching; the other 70 percent immediately swallowed the eggs.

Li and colleagues had expected the males with mutated receptors to alter their preference for water containing female pheromones, but the mouth brooding was a surprise. “That was kind of outside of our expectations,” Li says. “It’s something that we had never heard before, and we didn’t even predict that would happen.”

Left: A female A. burtoni holds eggs in her mouth. Right: A male A. burtoni, the cichlid species Li studies, carries eggs in his mouth and ignores nearby food pellets. (Photos courtesy of Li)

To explain the male mouth brooding, “Our first guess is that the PGF_2ɑ-derived pheromone cues play dual roles,” Li says. “The first role is to attract males during mating. But it may also inhibit male mouth-brooding behavior. So once you knock out this receptor, this circuit turns on in the males, and they become mouth brooders as well.” In other words, mouth brooding may be the default behavior in both species, but some mechanism driven by pheromones normally turns it off in males.

Supporting this hypothesis, Li and his colleagues found that in blackchin tilapia, a different cichlid species where males normally mouth brood the eggs until hatching, the males may have a naturally occurring mutation in the same Or113a gene. That supports the idea that the phenomenon of male mouth-brooding, and the mechanism that regulates it, “ is a regular mechanism in the field, not just some weird example we saw in the lab,” says Li.

The next question is what additional cues may be required to induce full-term mouth brooding. Li and colleagues are investigating. 

Connections across species

Cichlids have a complex social status system, demonstrate significant parental care, and present a diverse set of distinctive mating behaviors, traits they have in common with a wide range of species. Even some of the mechanisms are shared across large evolutionary distances. For example, the hormone prolactin drives parental care in fishes, mice, and even humans.

“We are using this simple model in cichlids, which are easy to breed and easy to study in the lab, and exploring mechanisms that may have broader biological relevance. It’s a wonderful model where we can bridge ecology and evolution concepts with neuroscience,” Li says. “By gaining deeper insights into what regulates parenting behavior, we can identify key neurons and genes in the brain involved in this process, with the goal of uncovering mechanisms that may be shared across various species.”

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