Maria Kurth

Biography

Maria's research interests lie broadly in resilience via stress and coping processes among adults, especially those in later life. She is particularly interested in how we leverage our prior experiences (and accumulated resources) to inform current coping strategies and stress responses. She is interested in these processes especially among Veterans and those residing in rural contexts.

To best answer her research questions, she uses both quantitative and/or qualitative methods. She would most identify with the life course (Elder et al., 2015) and lifespan (Baltes et al., 2006) theories of development, along with the transactional model of stress and coping (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Her in-progress research is focused on cumulative stress exposure, current stress and coping processes, and how prior experiences (both positive and negative) inform these responses and current well-being.

At OSU, she held the role of both research and teaching assistant in the Human Development & Family Studies (HDFS) program. She taught three courses at Oregon State University: Adult Development & Aging (HDFS 314), Adolescent Development (HDFS 313), and Family Studies (HDFS 341), in both in-person and online modalities. She also worked on two research projects: Veterans Aging Longitudinally in Oregon (VALOR) and Older Adult Stress/Coping during COVID-19 (2020 and 2021).

 She is currently (January 2024) a T32 Pathways Postdoctoral Fellow at Penn State University.