Biography
Karlyn Adams-Wiggins is an Associate Professor of Applied Development Psychology and affiliate of the Black Studies Department at Portland State University. Adams-Wiggins earned a PhD in Education (Concentration: Learning, Cognition, Instruction, & Development) from Rutgers University’s Graduate School of Education in 2015. Prior to joining Portland State’s Psychology Department in 2017, Karlyn was an Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at Tyler’s School of Education. Dr. Adams-Wiggins is an educational and developmental psychologist, broadly interested in the intersection of academic achievement motivation and identity, with a specific focus on how adolescents’ identities are negotiated in social interactions. Karlyn is a member of the Mind, Culture, and Activity/Cultural Praxis editorial collective and serves on the American Educational Research Association’s (AERA) Cultural-Historical Research SIG’s executive board. Karlyn also previously served as president of the Scholarly Consortium for Innovative Psychology in Education (SCIPIE) and chaired the American Educational Research Association’s (AERA) Adolescence & Youth Development SIG. Karlyn was a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow during 2021-2023.
Research
Karlyn’s current work addresses social interaction and identity construction through two primary research themes: 1) achievement motivation from a situative perspective in reform-oriented science learning environments and 2) Black/African diaspora youths’ construction of identities in context.
In Karlyn’s science education research, marginal identities are conceptualized as reflecting power relations in the local social context as well as in broader social systems (Adams-Wiggins, 2020; Adams-Wiggins, Myers, & Dancis, 2020; Adams-Wiggins & Dancis, 2022; Adams-Wiggins & Haluska, 2021; Adams-Wiggins & Tierney, 2021). Teachers’ identities as equity-minded educators also are framed developmentally in Dr. Adams-Wiggins’ recent project involving an Educator Community of Practice partnership (Adams-Wiggins, Tierney, Cerda-Lezama, Rivera Ramirez, Segura, & Adanna, 2025). This work has also included situative achievement goal theory studies (Rogat, Adams-Wiggins, Adeoye, & Tan, 2026). Karlyn also collaborates with graduate students and former graduate students to examine similar identity processes in undergraduate STEM experiences for students of color and first-generation college students (e.g. Cerda-Lezama, Lindwall, & Adams-Wiggins, 2021). Dr. Adams-Wiggins’ recent work examines Black/African-diaspora youths’ identity development using a critical and sociohistorical lens to address themes of coloniality as a classed phenomenon in youths’ lived experience (Adams-Wiggins & Taylor-Garcia, 2020; Adams-Wiggins, 2024; Adams-Wiggins, Olenloa, Lira, Rivera Ramirez, & Cerda-Lezama, 2026).
Across projects, Karlyn employs a critical and sociohistorical psychology lens in service of addressing social inequality and social justice aims. This ethically-committed approach also has informed Karlyn’s heavy use qualitative methods, which includes microgenetic analyses of video-recorded observations, ethnographic field work, and qualitative interviewing.
See Dr. Adams-Wiggins’ ORCID profile or Google Scholar profile for an up-to-date list of publications and projects.
Undergraduate Courses Taught
- PSY 431U Psychology of Adolescence and Early Maturity
- PSY 458 Development & Education of African-Diaspora Children & Youth
Graduate Courses Taught
- PSY 510/610 Development and Education of African American Children and Youth
- PSY 515/615 Advanced Applied Developmental Psychology
- PSY 610 Cultural-Historical Study - Critical Developmental Psychology
- PSY 610 Qualitative Research Methods in Education