Since December 2022, I am Chair of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology and Psychotherapy and Director of the to-be-founded Psychology Outpatient Clinic for Children and Adolescents at the University of Wuppertal. I am trained as a clinical psychologist and have experience working with children, adolescents, adults, and families. This experience continuously exerts an important influence on my research and teaching.

My research is informed by developmental, personality and clinical psychology and motivated by the notion that interpersonal experiences represent key nexuses through which child and adolescent development moves. I study trajectories of socio-affective dysregulation, their links to developmental psychopathology, as well as their manifestation in the daily lives of children and adolescents (Kaurin et al., 2022). More specifically, I am interested in how close relationships and interpersonal processes shape and affect the ways in which children and adolescents cope with stressful events (Woody, Kaurin et al., 2021, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry) and how these processes are impacted by individual differences and psychopathology (Kaurin et al., 2020, Affective Science). I am specifically interested in interpersonal and affective processes associated with suicidal ideation and self-harm (Kaurin et al., 2020, Psych Medicine), and how real-time monitoring techniques can be used to provide precise and – potentially – personalized predictions of risk and resilience (Kaurin et al., 2022, Behaviour Research and Therapy; Tsypes, Kaurin et al., 2022, Journal of Psychiatric Research) in youth.

Another area of my work is dedicated to the study of dimensional models of psychopathology in children and adolescents as well as their functional manifestations in daily life (Kaurin et al., 2022; Kaurin et al., in press, Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science; Wright & Kaurin, 2020. Psychopathology; Kaurin et al., 2022). I study those processes and structures across different time-scales, in a diverse range of patterns of behavior, emotion, and (neuro)physiology, how they change during critical transitions in our development such as adolescence, and am particularly interested in statistical methods for analyzing intensive longitudinal data.

I completed my clinical internship at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of University Medical Center Mainz and the Outpatient Clinic of the Johannes Gutenberg-University in 2019. Before starting my first faculty appointment at Witten/Herdecke University, I was a postdoc at the Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research and completed a individual postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh (USA) at the Personality Processes and Outcomes Laboratory under the mentorship of Dr. Aidan Wright.

I am committed to promote diversity, inclusion, and belonging in research, academia, clinical practice, and beyond. Growing up as a refugee in Germany and knowing how crucial this experience is to my understanding of the world, I believe that increasing representation of people from marginalized and historically disadvantaged backgrounds is critical for conducting ethical, comprehensive, and innovative clinical science research.

Short CV

University of Wuppertal
December 2022 – present
Full Professor (W3)
Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology and Psychotherapy
Institute of Psychology
declined competing offer (Full Professorship, W3) from University of Hamburg

University of Wuppertal
December 2022 – present
Director
Psychology Outpatient Clinic for Children and Adolescents

Witten/Herdecke University
April 2021 – November 2022
Assistant Professor
Child and Adolescent Clinical Psychology
Department of Psychology and Psychotherapy

University of Pittsburgh
2019 – 2021         
Postdoctoral Scholar
Personality Processes and Outcomes Laboratory
PI: Dr. Aidan Wright

Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research Mainz
2019 – 2021   
Postdoctoral Fellow
Cognitive and Behavioral Mechanisms of Resilience Area

Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz
2015 – 2019
PhD in Clinical Psychology
summa cum laude
Licensed Clinical Psychologist
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy