Assistant Professor of Psychology

christy.teranishi@csuci.edu

Through her research, Dr. Christy Teranishi found that identity development is tied to self-awareness and an understanding of how our identities develop over time and across contexts. She found that we weave our identities through a shared sense of goals, values, and expectations across the contexts of family, school, peers, work and neighborhoods. Her teaching and research interests led her along her educational and career path to earn her M.A. in Communications at San Diego State University and her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology at University of California, Santa Cruz. Her passion for teaching and research of Latino identity continued as a faculty member at Texas A&M International University, where she taught for six years and developed international study abroad programs in Guanajuato, México and Málaga, Spain.

Being a Californian at heart, she is excited to return home to join the faculty at CSU Channel Islands. Her goal is to continue promoting the teacher-scholar model by integrating her teaching and research interests, examining identity development and interpersonal relationships among Latino adolescents and young adults. She balances her family, work, and healthy lifestyle with the love and support of her fiancé, Danny, and by running on the beach with her dog, Goldilocks.