The Last Lecture
November 15th, 2016 at 7:30pm in Cascia Hall for the Last Lecture.
The Last Lecture series has been a tradition at Merrimack since 1999. In 2013 the Honors Program resurrected the tradition. See below for information regarding this year’s Last Lecture at Merrimack.
2016 Speaker
Laura Hsu
Assistant Professor
Department of Human Development
On November 15th at 7:30 p.m, Professor Laura Hsu will be standing in front of an audience of students, faculty, and staff to deliver the speech she would want to give if this were her “last lecture” ever.
Professor Laura Hsu has held positions in a variety of educational settings, including as a tutor in Americorps, afterschool settings, and a medium security prison; as a consultant for an inner city charter school; as an English teacher for elementary students in China; as an assistant professor of psychology at a community college; and now as an assistant professor of human development at Merrimack College where she has taught since 2012. At Merrimack, Professor Hsu has taught undergraduate courses in Child & Adolescent Development, Introduction to Human Development, and Diversity & Social Justice, and has taught graduate level courses in Theories of Adult Development, and College Teaching & Learning. Professor Hsu received her Ed.D. in Human Development and Psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and her B.A. in Psychology from the University of California at Berkeley.
Professor Hsu’s research focuses on how social environments and interpersonal relationships shape people’s identities and affect their mental and physical well-being. Her first line of research examines how various attachment figures influence the way young adults perceive themselves and how those self-perceptions are integrated into a coherent identity. Her second line of research investigates how environmental cues that signal aging can affect the physical condition and cognitive functioning of people in measurable ways, and how reframing thoughts about aging can ultimately improve people’s mental and physical health.
Photo: Kevin Salemme