One’s destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.” –Henry Miller, 1957
As a teacher-scholar, Jessica McKenzie pushes developmental science, and her students, toward seeing how youth development is socially, culturally, and historically constructed, and how youth negotiate and create culture. Her research on the developmental implications of globalization-based cultural change has integrated Fresno State undergraduates as co-investigators and co-authors on award-winning journal articles and international, national, and local presentations. In 2018, McKenzie received the inaugural Teaching Excellence Award in her department. Her upcoming fieldwork in northern Thailand is funded by an Early Career Scholars Grant from the Society for Research in Child Development and by the CSU Chancellor’s Office Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities Award.
McKenzie received the Provost’s Award for Promising New Faculty, and early tenure and promotion, in 2019.