Faculty Profile

Education: BS, University of Washington, 2001; BA, University of Washington, 2001; PhD, Columbia University, 2008

Munyi Shea joined the School of Education in 2016, after teaching and serving as associate professor of psychology at California State University, Los Angeles, a minority-serving institution.

Dr. Shea is a counseling psychologist whose research is focused on Asian and Latinx immigrant mental health, young adults’ help-seeking behavior, and culturally responsive prevention and intervention. She has developed and evaluated several school- or community-based prevention and intervention programs, including bullying prevention for Asian/Pacific Islander and Latinx school-aged children, a cognitive-behavioral guided self-help program for Latinas with eating disorders, and a peer-led, strengths-based support program for college-going mothers. These projects were supported by internal and extramural funding from multiple sources, including the National Institutes of Health and the American Psychological Association. 

Dr. Shea’s professional accomplishments include several research awards, including the Early Career Award for Research from the Asian American Psychological Association, the Outstanding Research Award from the American Education Research Association, and the Outstanding Contribution to Scholarship on Race and Ethnicity Award from the American Psychological Association (Division 17, Counseling Psychology). 

At SPU, Dr. Shea continues her line of research on understanding mental health challenges and help-seeking barriers faced by young adults, and seeks to improve the delivery of psychological and counseling services to historically marginalized communities. She frequently collaborates with colleagues from various disciplines, both inside and outside of SPU, and provides research mentorship to students who are equally passionate about enhancing the academic, social-emotional, and/or spiritual well-being of K–16 (kindergarten through undergraduate) students. 

More about Dr. Shea’s current projects, presentations, and publications. 

Selected Publications

• Ma, P-W., & Shea, M. (2021). First-Generation college students' perceived  barriers and vocational outcome expectations: Exploring the role of relational factors and sense of coherence. Journal of Career Development, 48(2) 91–104, First published online in 2019.
• Shea, M., Wong, Y. J., Nguyen, K., & Gonzalez, P. (2019). College students' barriers to seeking mental health counseling: Scale development and psychometric evaluation. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 66(5), 626–
  39.
• Shea, M., Wong, Y. J., Nguyen, K., & Baghdasarian, S. (2017). College women’s subjective femininity stress, gender solidarity, and help-seeking intentions: The mediating roles of help-seeking attitudes and social stigma. The Counseling Psychologist, 45, 438–61.
• Shea, M., Wang, C., Shi, W., Gonzalez, V., & Espelage, D. (2016). Parents and teachers' perspective of school bullying among Asian and Latino immigrant children. Asian American Journal of Psychology, 7, 83–96.
• Cachelin, F., Shea, M., Phoutdavone, P., Wilson, T., Thompson, D., Strigel, R. (2014).  Culturally adapted cognitive behavioral guided self-help for binge eating: A feasibility study with Mexican Americans. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 20, 449–57, doi: 10.1037/a0035345.
• Shea, M., Wong, Y. J., Wang, S., Wang, S., Jimenez, V., Hickman, S. J., & LaFollette, J. R. (2014). Toward a constructionist perspective of examining femininity experience: The development and psychometric properties of the subjective femininity stress scale. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 38, 275–91. doi:10.1177/0361684313509591.
• Shea, M., & Yeh, C. J. (2008). Asian American Students’ cultural values, stigma, and relational self-construal: correlates of attitudes toward professional help seeking. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 30, 157–72.

Please view Dr. Shea’s CV (PDF) for additional information.