Lina holds a B.S. in Fine Art from the University of California at Santa Cruz. She also earned an M.A. in Educational Psychology with a concentration in Early Childhood Education from California State University at Northridge, and a second M.A. in Education from the University of California, Irvine. She will have a Ph.D. in Education in December, 2024.
During her previous experience as a preschool teacher she engaged closely with young children; in particular, she witnessed how child behavior was often misunderstood by teachers. This culminated in her master's thesis, “Why won’t they just behave?!” which prompted teachers to reframe classroom “problematic" behavior as a child’s effort to communicate and seek self-regulation. Across all age groups, Lina draws upon her personal experiences and background to support learners and mentor students through academic transitions or challenges. As a 2023-2024 UC Irvine Pedagogical Scholar, she prioritizes student experiences and creates equitable learning environments that draw on research-backed practices.
Lina’s research interests revolve around understanding personality and sociocognitive mechanisms that predict socioemotional development in culturally diverse populations. Drawing on her expertise in child and adolescent development, she has investigated topics such as empathy, self-compassion, emotion regulation, prosocial behavior, and their implications for educational contexts. Her work spans diverse age groups, encompassing early childhood through undergraduate levels, highlighting the intricate interplay of socioemotional factors within learning environments.
Lina defended her three-study dissertation, “Motives & Elements of Kindness: The Interplay of Personal Traits & Prosocial Behaviors” in May 2024. The overarching aim of these three studies is to explore how factors such as self-efficacy, empathic concern, perspective-taking, and emotional regulation influence kindness, whether that kindness be directed outward (prosocial behavior) or inwards (self-compassion). Studies 2 and 3 examine what traits may relate to performative kindness (self-serving helping behavior) versus altruism (other-oriented helping). Findings indicate that (1) a strong internal ascription of social responsibility (“we are all responsible for one another”) differentiates between altruistic and self-serving motivations for helping behaviors; and (2) self-regulation and empathic concern are positively related to altruism and negatively related to self-serving helping.