Honoring Ng’s Impact at the Education Collaboratory

After five years at Yale Child Study Center (YCSC), Zi Jia (ZJ) Ng, PhD, is preparing for the next chapter of her career as she transitions to a new role at Wellstar Health. As the Education Collaboratory team celebrates her accomplishments and contributions to the field, they reflect on the profound impact Dr. Ng has had on advancing emotion regulation science in schools and the broader Yale community.

Ng joined YCSC in 2020 as a postdoctoral associate, bringing a wealth of expertise in child development and school-based mental health. A licensed child and adolescent psychologist and board-certified school psychologist, she completed her APA-accredited pre-doctoral internship at the Sarah Reed Children’s Center and her clinical postdoctoral fellowship at Centerstone Kentucky prior to joining Yale.

Over the course of her time at Yale, Ng successfully transitioned from her postdoctoral training to an associate research scientist appointment, wherein she contributed to a range of emotion regulation science research and school-based mental health initiatives across multiple lines of funded inquiry. She led several key components in the development of the Student Emotion Regulation Assessment (SERA), a digital tool designed to capture how students manage emotions like anger, anxiety, and sadness across academic and social situations.

The team recently published their findings in Social and Emotional Learning: Research, Practice, and Policy, with ZJ as first author. Her collaborative spirit and dedication to the mission of the Education Collaboratory will definitely be missed by both her colleagues and the communities she served.

Ng’s work at Yale is reflected in an impressive array of scholarly publications. With 26 published works, including 19 peer-reviewed articles and six op-eds, she has established herself as a thought leader in the field of emotion regulation in schools. Her research has focused on the intersection of child mental health, education, and social-emotional learning, with a particular emphasis on creating practical, evidence-based solutions that can be applied in real-world educational settings. Among her public scholarship, her 2024 op-ed in K-12 Dive stands out for its powerful call to action - urging educators to use emotion regulation strategies like cognitive reframing to support the well-being of Black students and confront racial bias in schools.

During her time at Yale, Ng also served as the inaugural social chair of the Education Collaboratory. In this role, she organized and facilitated team building and connection activities using games like Balderdash, Drawphone, and Dixit. Ng also contributed meaningfully to diversity action groups to bring transformational change to research methods and hiring and retention.

Concurrent with a thriving academic career, Ng also met her now husband, Andrew (Drew) Sheldon, MD, a child and adolescent psychiatry fellow, through mutual friends while at Yale. Their shared experiences at the university laid the foundation for a strong partnership, culminating in their marriage in 2023. This spring, Ng and her husband celebrated their union with a reception in Connecticut, bringing together family and friends to honor their journey and the community they’ve built at Yale. The event also marked a new chapter in their lives as they prepare to move to Georgia to be closer to family, particularly their niece Lynette and nephew Zenith.

As she embarks on this exciting new phase of her career in Georgia at Wellstar Health, Ng will continue to build on the work she has done at Yale, focusing on further advancing the field of child psychology and mental health and the nexus of emotion regulation science in practice.

Ng’s time at the Education Collaboratory has been defined by her commitment to research, collaboration, and community. Her contributions to the field of child psychology and her personal journey of growth and connection have had a profound impact on all team members. One staff member shared, "We are grateful for Dr. Ng's time at Yale and look forward to seeing the continued positive change she will undoubtedly bring to Wellstar Health and beyond."