Dr. Rudd joined the faculty at UCCS in 2022. She earned her PhD in Developmental Psychology with a minor concentration in Quantitative Methods from the University of California, Riverside. Before joining UCCS, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship at University of California, San Francisco in the Center for Health and Community, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and the Weill Institute for Neuroscience.

Trauma & Adversity, Physiological Regulation, Biological Embedding of Early Life Stress, Social Determinants of Health, Developmental Psychopathology, Risk & Resilience, Quantitative Methods

Dr. Rudd’s research program seeks to answer three main questions: 1) How do experiences of stress and adversity early in life influence developing physiological systems and health across the lifespan? 2) Do differences in physiological stress regulation explain the associations between stress exposure and health outcomes? 3) How can we protect individuals who encounter stress and adversity?

Her research answers these questions by evaluating the impact of adverse experiences across varied bioecological contexts on children’s mental and physical health outcomes, while exploring the biological mechanisms that underlie these associations and whether different factors (e.g., parenting, community resources) may protect against the negative effects of stress. Her theoretical and empirical contributions to research on stress, stress physiology, health, and resilience advances our understanding of a) optimal methodological and quantitative approaches to psychobiological research, b) mechanisms underlying the biological embedding of early life stress, and c) how biological and social factors can illuminate and promote pathways towards positive development in communities exposed to high levels of stressors.

Dr. Rudd is currently accepting graduate students and undergraduate research assistants. Please send her an email if you are interested in learning more about the research lab.

Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, San Francisco
Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology with a minor concentration in Quantitative Methods, University of California, Riverside 
B.A. in Psychology, Arizona State University

Dr. Rudd teaches courses in statistics, research methods, developmental psychology, and health psychology.

PSY 2100 - Introduction to Psychological Statistics
PSY 2110 - Introduction to Psychological Research and Measurement
PSY 5840 - Methods and Design for Analyzing Change

Rudd, K.L., *Cheng, S., *Cordeiro, A., Coccia, M., Karr, C.J., LeWinn, K.Z., Mason, A., Trasande, L., Nguyen, R.N.H., Sathyanarayana, S., Swan, S., Barrett, E.S., & Bush, N.R. (2022). Associations Between Maternal Stressful Life Events and Perceived Distress during Pregnancy and Child Mental Health at Age 4. Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-022-00911-7

Rudd, K.L., Roubinov, D.S., Jones-Mason, K., Alkon, A., & Bush, N.R. (2021). Developmental consequences of early life stress on risk for psychopathology: Longitudinal associations with children's multisystem physiological regulation and executive functioning. Development and Psychopathology, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579421000730

Rudd, K.L., & Yates, T.M. (2020). A Latent Change Score Approach to Understanding Dynamic Autonomic Coordination. Psychophysiology, 57(11): e13648. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.13648

Rudd, K.L., Doan S.N., & Yates T.M. (2019). The Physical Health Costs of Positive Adaptation to Childhood Adversity. Journal of Health Psychology, 26(9): 1324-1338. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105319873961

Rudd, K.L., & Yates, T.M. (2018). The Implications of Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Regulatory Coordination for Understanding Child Adjustment. Developmental Psychobiology, 60(8): 1023-1036. https://doi.org/10.1002/dev.21784

Rudd, K.L., Alkon, A., & Yates, T.M. (2017). Prospective Relations between Intrusive Parenting and Child Behavior Problems: Differential Moderation by Parasympathetic Nervous System Regulation and Child Sex. Physiology and Behavior, 180, 120-130. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2017.08.014

American Psychological Association Div 5: Quantitative and Qualitative Methods
American Psychological Association Div 7: Developmental Psychology
American Psychosomatic Society
Society for Psychophysiological Research
Society for Research in Child Development
American Psychological Association

Kristen L. Rudd, PhD