Prof. Sylvia Xiaohua Chen is Chair Professor of Social and Cultural Psychology in the Department of Applied Social Sciences,  Associate Dean of the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, Director of the Yan Oi Tong Au Suet Ming Child Development Centre, and Associate Director of the Mental Health Research Centre at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Prof. Chen is a Registered Psychologist and a Fellow of the Hong Kong Psychological Society, a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science (previously American Psychological Society), and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (now Advance HE), UK. Currently, she is President of the Asian Association of Social Psychology (AASP) and Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology (JCCP). She was an Associate Editor of JCCP and Asian Journal of Social Psychology. She also serves as a Member of the Humanities and Social Sciences Panel (Joint Research Schemes) and the Humanities, Social Sciences and Business Studies Selection Panel (Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme and Postdoctoral Fellowship Scheme), Research Grants Council (RGC).

Prof. Chen’s research areas are in the fields of personality and social psychology, as well as cultural psychology. Specifically, her research interests include the social psychology of bilingualism and biculturalism, globalisation and multiculturalism, personality and social behaviour in cultural contexts, as well as cultural diversity and mental health. Her work has appeared in leading journals in the field, such as Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Social Psychological and Personality Science, American Psychologist, and Psychological Science.

Prof. Chen was a recipient of Early Career Award conferred by the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology, Michael Harris Bond Award for Early Career Research Contributions and Jung-heun Park Young Scholar Award conferred by the AASP, and the Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship Scheme awarded by RGC. She also received several academic awards from the American Psychological Association Division 52 (International Psychology), including the Outstanding International Psychologist Award in 2022. Sylvia was invited to be a keynote speaker at different international conferences, and presented a Keynote Address at the 32nd International Congress of Psychology in July 2021.

• PhD in Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
• MPhil in Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
• Postgraduate Diploma in Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
• M.A. in Counseling Psychology, Santa Clara University, USA
• B.A. in English Language and Literature, Sun Yat-Sen University, China