Yan Ruth Xia

Yan Ruth Xia’s research interests are immigrant youth behavioral and mental health, parent-adolescent communication and relationship, strengths and stress among Asian immigrant families, adolescent substance abuse, program evaluation, and Chinese adolescent social competence.

Her outreach interests are community-based anti-drug and anti-alcohol prevention, serving on the Asian Community and Culture Center Board to promote culturally sensitive service delivery, and engagement in public speech to reduce the barriers of seeking mental and behavioral services among the Asian population.

She teaches Foundations in Family Studies, Migration and Immigrant families, Violences in the Global Context, and Program Design, Administration, and Evaluation.

In 2018-2019 Yan Ruth Xia received the Fulbright Distinguished Chair Award from The State Department and J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board in Washington, DC. In 2018, she was awarded the 2018 Felix Berardo Scholarship Award for Mentoring from the National Council on Family Relations, Orlando, FL. In 2017, she received the Outstanding Service Award from the National Council on Family Relations, Orlando, FL. Also in 2017, Xia received the National Council on Family Relations Service Award, National Council on Family Relations in Vancouver, Canada. In 2015, Yan Ruth Xia received the Award for Outstanding Research Papers at the Chinese Positive Psychology Annual Conference with Tian, B. W. & Guo, Y. Q. 

Ph.D. in Family Science, minor in Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Education Research, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2000
M.S. in Family Sciences with a Specialization in Marriage and Family Therapy, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
M.A. in English and English Literature, East China Normal University, Guangzhou, China