Kristen L. Rudd

Dr. Kristen L. Rudd is an Assistant Professor of Quantitative Psychology at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS), affiliated with the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. She joined UCCS in 2022 after completing her postdoctoral fellowship at UC San Francisco's Center for Health and Community, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and Weill Institute for Neuroscience. She holds a PhD in Developmental Psychology with a Quantitative Methods minor from UC Riverside and a BA from Arizona State University.

Her research examines three core areas: (1) how early stress influences physiological development and lifelong health, (2) physiological regulation's role in stress-health relationships, and (3) protective factors for stress-exposed individuals. She employs advanced quantitative methods to study biological embedding of adversity across bioecological contexts, with particular focus on:

• Trauma and adversity impacts
• Autonomic nervous system coordination
• Child mental and physical health outcomes
• Resilience and protective factors
• Social determinants of health

Her publication record shows consistent focus on developmental psychopathology, with recent work emphasizing longitudinal analyses of stress physiology, autonomic coordination dynamics, and maternal-child health relationships. Methodologically, her articles feature innovative applications of latent change modeling and multisystem physiological assessment.

Dr. Rudd directs the PERCH Research Lab (https://labs.uccs.edu/perch/) which translates research on stress mechanisms into prevention strategies. She is currently accepting MA students for Fall 2026 and undergraduate research assistants. Her teaching portfolio includes statistics, research methods, health psychology, and specialized courses in longitudinal analysis.