Nicholas Turiano

Nicholas Turiano is an Associate Professor of Life-Span Developmental Psychology at West Virginia University (WVU), where he has been faculty since 2014. He holds a B.S. in Human Development and Family Studies from Penn State University (2005) and a dual-title Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies and Gerontology from Purdue University (2012). He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center (2012–2014), focusing on psychophysiology and health disparities.

His research examines the interplay between personality development and health processes across the lifespan, with a focus on identifying mechanisms such as substance use, diet/exercise, and stress reactivity that link personality traits to health outcomes like chronic disease, disability, and mortality. Key areas include resilience to early adversity, college student transition challenges, and psychological predictors of development during higher education.

Dr. Turiano leads the PHaD Lab (Personality, Health, and Development), which utilizes longitudinal data from studies like MIDUS (Midlife in the U.S.) and the College Student Transition (CST) study. His methodological expertise includes survival analysis, structural equation modeling, and growth curve modeling.

He teaches courses on research methods, personality theory, health psychology, and advanced statistical techniques. Current research emphasizes childhood adversity impacts, resilience, and coordinated analyses across international datasets to validate findings in health psychology.