Professor of Psychology
About
Additional Research Interests: Hormones/Endocrinology
The goal of my research is to leverage network analysis techniques to uncover how the brain mediates gonadal hormone influences on behavior across the lifespan. Thus, there are quantitative and substantive components to the work being conducted in the Methods, Sex differences, and Development – M(SD) – lab that I direct. Quantitative work concerns creating and applying individualized models, such as temporal network maps, to time series data; these are intensive longitudinal data, including functional neuroimages, daily diaries, and observations. Substantive work concerns investigating the links between androgens (e.g., testosterone) and ovarian hormones at key developmental periods, such as puberty and the reproductive years, on sex-related behaviors, including aspects of cognition (e.g., mental rotations and verbal recall) and psychopathology (e.g., substance use and depression). Most of my research comes from a person-specific perspective, owing to the heterogeneity that exists across people, gendered processes, and time.
Before joining the faculty at U-M in 2016, Dr. Beltz received her Ph.D. in Psychology from Penn State University, where she specialized in cognitive and affective neuroscience, followed by two years as a post-doctoral scholar in Human Development and Family Studies focusing on quantitative network analyses. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Jacobs Foundation, and James S. McDonnell Foundation. She has received early career awards from the Association for Psychological Science and the American Psychological Association as well as teaching and research awards from U-M.
