Toria Herd received her PhD in Developmental Psychology from Virginia Tech in 2021. She received her M.S. in Developmental Psychology at Virginia Tech and her B.A. in Psychology from the State University of New York College at Geneseo. 

Toria's research uses a developmental psychopathology framework and longitudinal modeling to understand how individual and environmental risk and protective factors coalesce to predict adolescent health risk behaviors and psychopathology. She has primarily focused on parenting factors, (e.g., maltreatment, parent-child relationship quality) and emotion regulation development. 

As a postdoctoral research fellow at Pennsylvania State University, she will be continuing this line of research with Dr. Jennie Noll, focusing specifically on longitudinal sequelae of child sexual abuse as well working with Dr. Sarah Font to understand how treatment of youth mental health is associated with placement outcomes for youth involved in the child welfare system. Moreover, in her work with Drs. Taylor Scott and Max Crowley, she provides science communication training to researchers as well as non-partisan technical assistance to congressional offices on child welfare issues.