Karl Kwan

Kwong-Liem Karl Kwan is Professor and Interim Coordinator of the Gerontological Counseling program in the Department of Counseling. He earned his Ph.D. (1996) from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. He was a former tenured faculty at Purdue University (1996-2005) and University of Missouri at Columbia (2005-2008), training master-level students in CACREP-accredited mental health and school counseling programs as well as doctoral students in APA-accredited programs in Counseling Psychology.

Dr. Kwan’s research and clinical interests focus on acculturation, racial salience, ethnic identity and their mental health impact on immigrant and minority adjustment, intergenerational family dynamics, and multicultural counseling relationships. Cultural-Systemic-Familial lens must be applied in the research and practice of prevention, intervention, and advocacy. His research on multicultural assessment challenges counseling professionals to be cognizant of the cultural assumptions and biases embedded in the definition of psychological constructs, generation of research questions, and cross-cultural application of testing.

Dr. Kwan serves as Psychology Consultant for the Richmond Area Multi-Services (RAMS), Inc., a non-profit mental heath agency serving and advocating for culturally and linguistically diverse communities in San Francisco. He served on the editorial boards of numerous journals, including Journal of Counseling Psychology, Asian Journal of Counselling (Hong Kong), Bulletin of Educational Psychology (Taiwan), and as past editor of the International Forum of The Counseling Psychologist. Dr. Kwan is a member of the American Counseling Association, the Asian American Psychological Association, and a fellow of the American Psychological Association.