

Campion Hall Room 314
Telephone: 617-552-4079
Email: belle.liang@bc.edu
ORCID 0000-0002-0005-4856
Mentoring and relational health in adolescence and young adulthood; social media & electronically mediated relationships
Belle Liang’s research explores positive youth development, including mentoring and relational health in adolescence and young adulthood. In particular, her work involves the development of youth purpose interventions, including those that are technologically mediated. She led the development of a web-based application, “True North,” that helps students explore significant questions in their lives and that BC programs and courses incorporate into their curricula. Her expertise extends to college access, gender, social oppression, whole person education, and student motivation.
Since Liang joined the Lynch School in 2000, she has focused on growth-fostering mentor relationships among youth from diverse backgrounds and transforming systems and contexts so that they support the cultivation of purpose in young people with diverse backgrounds and values. She is a licensed psychologist and an advisory board member for a number of organizations that serve youth.
Recognized as an American Psychological Association (APA) Fellow, Division 17, for outstanding contributions to the field of counseling psychology, Liang is a member of the APA, the Society for Research on Child Development, and the Society for Research on Adolescence, and the recipient of a number of teaching and mentoring awards.
Liang, B., & Klein, T. (2022). How to Navigate Life: The New Science of Finding Your Way in School, Career, and Beyond. St. Martin's Press.
Sepulveda, J. A., Lincoln, B., Liang, B., ... Perella, J. (2021). MPOWER: The impact of a purpose program on adolescents’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Frontiers in Psychology 12. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.761580
Lund, T. J., Liang, B., Sepulveda, J. ... Spencer, R. (2021). Parenting and youth purpose: Fostering other-oriented aims. Youth, 1(1), 2-13. DOI: 10.3390/youth1010002
Hailes, H. P., Ceccolini, C. J., Gutowski, E., & Liang, B. (2021). Ethical guidelines for social justice in psychology. Professional psychology: Research and practice, 52(1), 1-11. DOI: 10.1037/pro0000291
Klein, T., Liang, B., Sepulveda, J. A., & White, A. E. (2019). MPOWER: An evidence-based youth purpose program. Journal of character education, 15(2), 103-113.
Price, M., Hill, N. E., Liang, B., & Perella, J. (2019). Teacher relationships and adolescents experiencing identity‐based victimization: What matters for whom among stigmatized adolescents. School mental health, 11(5). DOI: 10.1007/s12310-019-09327-z