Mary Kate Koch, Ph.D.

Selected Publications

Koch, M. K., Merritt, H., McCormick, K. C., Innis-Thompson, M. & Mendle, J. (2025).      Are you there, God? It’s me, gender stereotypes in 100 years of coming-of-age novels. Journal for Research on Adolescence, 35. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jora.70036

Mendle, J., Koch, M. K., McCormick, K.C., & Belfield, S. (2025). Flow processing: Narratives of menarche in early adolescence. Journal of Adolescence. https://doi.org/10.1002/jad.70009

Koch, M. K., & Mendle, J. (2022). In their own words: Finding meaning in girls’ experiences of puberty. Child Development. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13836

Broadly, I study how people navigate developmental transitions and why some individuals respond more adaptively to transitional challenges than others. While I typically focus on adolescent development (e.g., puberty, identity formation), I have studied transitions across the lifespan (e.g., how older adults navigate terminal diagnoses). I use a diverse toolkit of methods including content analysis, natural language processing, structural equation modeling, longitudinal studies, and laboratory experiments to answer these questions. I do this research in collaboration the with undergraduate research assistants in my lab, the CAN lab (Contextualizing Adolescent Narratives), and with community partners in the broader Spokane area.

You can learn more about my research at my website: https://marykatekoch.github.io/