Ágnes Szabó

Ágnes Szabó is a Hungarian-born health psychologist and academic based in New Zealand. She is a senior lecturer in the School of Health at Victoria University of Wellington, where her work investigates how sociocultural factors affect health and well-being across the life course.

Early life and education

Szabó grew up in Hungary, and moved to New Zealand in 2012 to undertake doctoral study at Victoria University of Wellington. She completed her PhD in cross-cultural psychology in 2015, supervised by Professor Colleen Ward.

Academic career

After graduating, Szabó joined Massey University as a post-doctoral fellow and later Lecturer, focusing on health and lifespan development. In December 2019, she took up a lectureship (now senior lectureship) at Victoria University of Wellington, where she also holds the Royal Society New Zealand’s Rutherford Discovery Fellowship.

Szabó’s scholarship lies at the intersection of ageing, migration and identity. She combines cross-cultural psychology, critical gerontology and life-course approaches to examine how older migrants negotiate cultural identities, cope with stress and maintain health in their adopted homelands. Her Rutherford-funded project, Growing old in an adopted land, integrates gerontology and acculturation theory to develop culturally sensitive frameworks for ageing well.

Honours

• Rutherford Discovery Fellowship (Royal Society Te Apārangi, 2019), supporting five years of independent research on migrant ageing

Selected publications

• Szabó, A., Allen, J., Stephens, C., & Alpass, F. (2019). ‘‘Longitudinal analysis of the relationship between purposes of Internet use and well-being among older adults.’’ The Gerontologist, 59(1), 58-68.
• Ward, C., Ng Tseung-Wong, C., Szabó, A., Qumseya, T., & Bhowon, U. (2018). ‘‘Hybrid and alternating identity styles as strategies for managing multicultural identities.’’ Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 49(9), 1481–1503.