PhD Student, Human Development and Family Sciences
Zexi Zhou is a fifth-year Ph.D. student in Human Development and Family Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research examines daily stress and adaptive processes in healthy aging, with a particular focus on the interplay between sleep and psychosocial experiences in older adults’ everyday lives. She is also interested in intergenerational relationships across the lifespan, studied through a culturally sensitive lens. Her work integrates multiple methods, including self-report surveys, neuroimaging, ecological momentary assessment, and real-life observational approaches such as accelerometry and naturalistic audio recordings. She is deeply passionate about pursuing a career in academia and aspire to become a lifespan development scientist, contributing to both research and education in the field.