YoungAh Park

Education & Experience

PhD, Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Bowling Green State University, 2012
MA, Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Bowling Green State University
BA, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, South Korea

Before pursuing an academic career, Dr. YoungAh Park worked as an in-house trainer for employee development and training at multinational companies, such as Unilever and Philip Morris. Prior to joining LER in 2015, she was a faculty member in the industrial-organizational psychology doctoral program at Kansas State University.

Research Interests

Dr. Park and her research team have an overarching research goal: to contribute to scholarly knowledge in answering the significant question, “How can organizations support their employees’ well-being and health while enabling them to fully engage in their work and perform well?” Specifically, she focuses on the following research areas: (1) work stress, recovery, and health behavior, (2) work-nonwork life (e.g., boundary management, work-family, work-school, flexible work arrangements), and (3) workplace interpersonal mistreatment (incivility, sexual harassment, customer mistreatment).

Her research has received funding from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and has been published in leading journals such as Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Journal of Organizational Behavior, and Personnel Psychology, among others.  She received Arnold O. Beckman Research Award at UIUC in 2020 and the Outstanding Practical Implications for Management Paper Award in the Organizational Behavior Division at the Academy of Management in 2015, alongside her former doctoral students. They have gone on to become tenure-track assistant professors at the Management Department of the National University of Singapore (Dr. Sooyeol Kim, 2019) and San Jose State University (Dr. Lucy Headrick, 2021), as well as the Industrial-Organizational Psychology Program at George Mason University (Dr. Yijue Liang, 2022).  Media outlets that have featured her team’s research work include Time, Forbes, Illinois Public Media, APA Monitor on Psychology, Science Daily, and more. 

Dr. Park enjoys collaborating with doctoral students on research projects and fostering their academic growth. She sets high expectations while providing supportive, developmental feedback to help students achieve their goals efficiently. She enjoys generating and discussing ideas with students, refining theoretical arguments, enhancing writing clarity, and strengthening research methodologies. Committed to practicing what she studies in work stress and work-life balance, she actively supports students in managing their workload and prioritizing health and well-being.

Editorial Work

Courses

LER 537 Employee Stress, Well-Being, & Safety
LER 536 Management of Workplace Gender Issues