Professional Bio

Dr. Liben is an Evan Pugh University Professor at Penn State. Her primary appointment is Professor in the Department of Psychology of the College of the Liberal Arts at Penn State where she is affiliated with the Developmental Psychology area. She also holds faculty appointments in the College of Health & Human Development and in the College of Education. One focus of her research is on gender development, gender stereotypes, and, more generally, on the emergence of social-group identities and on how these affect interactions with others and personal decisions (e.g., career choices). A second focus is on spatial cognition, its development, and on how individual differences in spatial cognition arise and influence STEM education and participation. She has studied these topics in family, museum, school, and work settings. Her research has been funded by NSF, NICHD, NIE, the Social Science Research Council, and the National Geographic Society.

Dr. Liben has been at Penn State for most of her career with brief faculty appointments at the University of Rochester and the University of Pittsburgh. She has spent sabbatical leaves at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, the National Geographic Society, the City University of New York, the University of Freiburg, New York University, and the University of Canberra. Dr. Liben has also been active in various professional organizations. She has served as President of the Society for the Study of Human Development (SSHD), the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD), Division 7 (Developmental) of the American Psychological Association (APA), and the Jean Piaget Society, and has been named Fellow of APA, APS, EPA, and AERA. She has also been active in editing, having served as Editor-in-Chief of Child Development, the Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, and the inaugural 11 volumes of the Jean Piaget Society Symposium Series. Additional information about Dr. Liben's professional activities, honors, and publications are found on her vita.

Graduate Students:

Dr. Liben is not currently accepting new graduate students

Undergraduate Research Assistants:

Dr. Liben is not currently recruiting new undergraduate students for her lab.

Illustrative Publications

Bierman, K. L., Liben, L. S., Small, M., Connell, J., Heinrichs, B., Menold, J., Miller, S., & Mannweiler, M. (2025, forthcoming). Guided activity kits impact parents’ scaffolding of child STEM play. Learning and Instruction, 96, 102082.

Bower, C. A. & Liben, L. S. (2023). Instructors’ gestural accuracy affects geology learning in interaction with students’ spatial skills. Journal of Intelligence, 11, 192.  

Hilliard, L. J. & Liben, L. S. (2020). Addressing sexism with children: Young adults' beliefs about bias socialization. Child Development, 91, 488-507.

Bigler, R. S., & Liben, L. S. (2020). The interplay of developing morality and gender attitudes. In L. A. Jensen (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Moral Development: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (pp. 725-745). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Liben, L. S. (2017). A cognitive-developmental perspective on maps in children’s literature. In N. Goga & B. Kümmerling-Meibauer (Eds.), Maps and mapping in children's literature: Landscapes, seascapes, and cityscapes (pp. 17-39). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Liben, L. S. (2016). We've come a long way baby (But we're not there yet): Gender past, present, and future. Child Development, 87, 5–28.