Faculty

Amy L Byrd, PhD

Amy L Byrd, PhD

Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology

Contact Details

3811 O'Hara St.
Pittsburgh
 
PA
 
15213
Email

Education & Training

PhD
Clinical and Developmental Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences
MS
Clinical and Developmental Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences
Clinical Psychology, UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital
Clinical and Developmental Psychology, University of Pittsburgh

Research Interests

Biopsychosocial risk mechanisms for aggression; Emotion and behavior dysregulation; Emotion socialization and dyadic interactions
Selected Research Publications & Products
  1. Byrd AL, Kahhale I, Vize CE, Griffith RL, Viding E & Stepp SD (in press). Expanding learning models of aggression: Examining function within the dyadic context to enhance clinical utility. Aggression and Violent Behavior.
  2. Byrd AL, Vine V, Vanwoerden S, Jennings JR & Stepp SD. (2025). Prolonged RSA recovery following parent-child conflict predicts reactive aggression in daily life. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 1-9.
  3. Byrd AL, Frigoletto OA, Vine V, Vanwoerden S, Jennings RD, Zalewski M & Stepp SD. (2023) Maternal invalidation and child RSA reactivity to frustration interact to predict teacher-reported aggression among at-risk preschoolers. Psychological Medicine, 53(13), 6366-6375.
  4. Byrd AL, Vine V, Frigoletto OA, Vanwoerden S & Stepp SD. (2022) A Multi-Method Investigation of Parental Response to Youth Emotion: Prospective Effects on Emotion Dysregulation and Reactive Aggression in Daily Life. Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, 50 (2), 117-131.
  5. Byrd AL, Lee AH, Frigoletto OA, Zalewski M & Stepp SD. (2021). Applying new RDoC dimensions to the development of emotion regulation: Examining the influence of maternal emotion regulation on within-individual changes in child emotion regulation. Development and Psychopathology, 33 (5), 1821-1836.

Clinical Interests

Emotion and behavioral dysregulation; Dialectical behavior therapy; Youth and families

Education Interests

Medical student & resident education; Research mentorship; Clinical training & mentorship

Applying NIMH Research Domain Criteria Dimensions to the Development of Emotion Regulation

Byrd et al. Development and Psychopathology 2021

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)’s Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) is a research framework that integrates multiple levels of information (from genomics and circuits to behavior and self-report) to explore basic dimensions of functioning that span the full range of human behavior. While environmental and developmental influences represent important elements of the RDoC framework, it offers little...

Amy Byrd, PhD, Honored as Association for Psychological Science Rising Star

Amy Byrd, PhD, Honored for Association of Psychological Sciences Rising Star

Congratulations to Amy Byrd, PhD, who was recently named an Association for Psychological Science (APS) Rising Star! The APS Rising Star designation is presented to outstanding APS members in the earliest stages of their research careers after completing doctoral training. Dr. Byrd’s research is focused on the neurobiological processes underlying the development and persistence of reactive aggression in adolescents...

Now in Psychological Medicine: Respiratory Sinus Arrythmia Reactivity to Parent-Child Conflict Linked to Emotion Dysregulation in Youth

https://www.psychiatry.pitt.edu/about-us/our-people/faculty/stephanie-d-stepp-phd

Pitt Psychiatry investigators including Amy Byrd, PhD (Assistant Professor of Psychiatry), Vera Vine, PhD (postdoctoral fellow), Joseph Beeney, PhD (Assistant Professor of Psychiatry), Lori Scott, PhD (Assistant Professor of Psychiatry), J. Richard Jennings, PhD (Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Clinical and Translational Science), and Stephanie Stepp, PhD (Associate Professor of Psychiatry and...

Pitt Psychiatry Investigators Study Affective Dynamics Across Internalizing and Externalizing Dimensions of Psychopathology

Scott et al. Clinical Psychological Science 2020

Dysregulated affective dynamics (i.e., how emotions ebb and flow over time) have most often been studied among people with a given disorder compared to an unaffected control group. However, this approach has yielded inconsistent findings because many emotional states are seen across multiple psychopathologies. In fact, research has shown that psychiatric disorders are organized by evidence of internalizing (e.g...

The Services for Teens at Risk (STAR)-Center Holds Virtual 2020 Conference: “Bringing Treatment into Focus: Being Virtually Present”

2020 STAR Center is 1st Virtual Pitt Psychiatry Major Event

The Services for Teens at Risk (STAR)-Center, established in 1986, is a nationally recognized suicide prevention program for teens and young children, part of UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital’s Child and Adolescent Services. The annual STAR-Center conference presents best-practices in clinical care incorporated into practical guidelines for educational and community settings. This year, more than 600 attendees...