Nicholas Turiano, Ph.D.

About

Dr. Turiano received his B.S. in human development and family studies from Penn State University in 2005 and a dual-title Ph.D. in human development and family studies and gerontology from Purdue University in 2012. 

He completed an NRSA postdoctoral fellowship in psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center with training in psychophysiology and health disparities research (2012-2014). 

Dr. Turiano joined the WVU faculty as an Assistant Professor of lifespan developmental psychology in 2014 and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2020. 

Degrees

• 2005 B.S. The Pennsylvania State University
• 2008 M.S. Purdue University
• 2012 Ph.D. Purdue University

Research Interests

Dr. Turiano’s research focuses on the mechanisms connecting personality traits to a variety of life span health outcomes, with a specific emphasis on disease, disability, and mortality risk. A specific emphasis centers on how personality change is associated with changes in substance use behavior and physiological functioning indexed by cardiovascular, metabolic, and immune biomarkers. An emerging line of his research focuses on improving the measurement of Adverse childhood Experiences (ACEs) and identifying the life span pathways linking ACEs to suboptimal life outcomes, as well as identifying the psychological and social characteristics that promote “resiliency”.  Dr. Turiano conducts this work as the co-director of the Translational Research on Adverse Childhood Experiences and Resilience (TRACER) initiative. His life span training leads him to study associations among personality and ACEs with health in diverse age groups, including adolescence and emerging adulthood, with a concentrated effort in late adulthood. 

Dr. Turiano utilizes population-based data from ongoing longitudinal studies, as well as lab-focused studies involving college students and national samples recruited via Prolific. His research incorporates a diverse set of methodological tools such as proportional hazards modeling, factor analytic procedures, structural equation modeling, and growth curve modeling.

The PHaD Lab will be accepting applications from potential graduate students for Fall admission. If interested in working in the PHaD lab, contact Dr. Turiano at naturiano@mail.wvu.edu. Click here to access the webpage for Dr. Turiano’s lab.

Teaching Interests

Dr. Turiano specializes in teaching methodology and statistics courses at both the undergraduate and graduate student levels. He also offers courses in personality theory, health psychology, and lifespan development. 

Courses

•   Psychology 203 – Research Methods & Analysis I
  
•   Psychology 204 – Research Methods & Analysis II
•   Psychology 363 – Personality Theory
  
•   Psychology 380 – Health Psychology
•   Psychology 546 – Methodological Issues in Developmental Psychology
  
•   Psychology 712 – Advanced Longitudinal Methods and Statistics
  
•   Psychology 715 – Archival Data Analysis