Bibiana Koh

Assistant Professor

Bibiana’s teaching, research, and scholarship are informed by her experience with children, youth, and families as both an educator and a clinician. She has extensive clinical experience in regular and special education schools, community and hospital-based outpatient clinics, and residential settings. She has also lived and taught overseas in China, Korea, Morocco, and Laos.

Bibiana believes that education should be a transformational learning experience what bell hooks (1994) calls engaged pedagogy. As an educator, her primary goal is to facilitate students learning processes vis-a-vis engaged pedagogy. By creating an intellectually safe and open classroom environment, she believes learners are more likely to take educational risks, to engage in critical thinking, and to participate in a collaborative, co-constructed learning process.

Education

• B.A. Hartwick College
• M.A. Columbia University
• M.A.T. School for International Training
• M.S.W. Smith College
• Ph.D. University of Minnesota

Current Research Interests

• Personality
• Family interactions and processes
• Child adjustment
• Genetic relatedness and adoption
• Identity
• Race, ethnicity, and culture
• Social work education

Publications

Koh, B.D., Davis, L., Walkner-Spaan, A.J., & Rueter, M.A. (under review). Dyadic trait fit, adolescent conflict, and adoption status.

Samek, D., Koh, B.D., & Rueter, M.A. (in press). Overview of behavioral genetics research for family professionals. Journal of Family Theory & Review.

Koh, B. D., & Rueter, M. A. (2011). Contributions of parent-adolescent negative emotionality traits to adolescent conflict and adopted adolescent externalizing behaviors. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 40, 825-836.

Von Korff, L., Grotevant, H. D., Koh, B. D., & Samek, D. R. (2010). Adoptive mothers: Identity agents on the pathway to adoptive identity formation. Identity: An International Journal of Theory and Research, 10, 122-137.