Fanxiao Wani Qiu, Ph.D.

About me

I'm a tenure-track assistant professor at Fudan University. My research broadly focuses on children’s social-cognitive development, with a focus on how they learn from others and share knowledge. Specific questions I am interested in studying include: 

1. How do children learn efficiently from limited information?

2. How do people select information and examples to transmit to others, and how can computational approaches help explain these choices?

3. How do different approaches to teaching shape children’s learning?

4. How do children interact with and learn from AI assistants?

More broadly, I am interested in leveraging our understanding of children's social learning to inform educational practices that support student motivation, innovation, and learning outcomes. 

I received my Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of Southern California, where I was advised by Dr. Henrike Moll. I subsequently worked as a postdoctoral researcher with Dr. Sandy Latourrette. 

Prior to starting my doctoral studies, I taught pre-k and second-grade for 3 years at the Shady Hill School in Cambridge, MA. In the Boston area, I worked as a research assistant in Dr. Kathleen Corriveau and Dr. Paul Harris' labs, where I studied children's social cognitive development. I received my masters in Human Development and Psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and BA from Swarthmore College, where I studied interest development with Dr. K. Ann Renninger.

Family: My husband, Oscar Leong, is faculty at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in the Institute of Natural Sciences. We welcomed our daughter, Gemma, in May of 2023. 

News

• April 2026: Three of our papers have been accepted to Cognitive Science Society 2026!

• April 2026: I am excited to share that I will be joining Fudan University as a tenure-track assistant professor in September 2026!

• June 2025: I am honored to receive the American Psychological Association's Div 7 Dissertation Research Grant.

• May 2025: Our commentary on Lew-Levy & Amir's article has been accepted for publication at Brain and Behavioral Sciences.

• May 2025: I successfully defended my dissertation: The Development of Young Children's Pedagogical Cognition!

• January 2025: Our paper on children's teaching of objective information is published in Developmental Psychology.

• October 2024: I successfully proposed my dissertation! 

• October 2024: Our meta-analysis on children's selective teaching and informing is published in Developmental Science.

• June 2024: I presented our work on children's selective teaching of objective information at the Jean Piaget Society in Toronto.

• March 2024: I presented our meta-analysis at the Biennial Conference of the Cognitive Development Society in Pasadena.

• January 2024: Our paper on how children weigh sensationalism and veracity when teaching is published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

• January 2024: I am honored to have been awarded our department's Excellence in Scientific Writing Award.

• January 2024: Our paper on how children vary their instruction depending on the maturity of the listener is published at Child Development. 

• March 2023: I presented our work on children's selective teaching based on the role of the listener at the Society of Research on Child Development in Salt Lake City.