Rate My Professor Kristin Kirchner

Dr. Kristin Kirchner serves as Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychological Science at Valdosta State University. She obtained her Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology and a Certificate of Applied Statistics from the University of South Carolina in 2022. She also holds an M.A. in Experimental Psychology from the University of South Carolina in 2020 and a B.S. in Experimental Psychology with Distinction, minoring in Biology, from the University of South Carolina Upstate. Her teaching responsibilities encompass Introduction to General Psychology, Sensation & Perception, Senior Seminar, Drugs, Health, & Behavior, Experimental Psychology, and other neuroscience and methods-based courses.

Dr. Kirchner's research interests include healthcare worker stress, undergraduate student stress, drug use and addiction (drugs, gambling, video games), pedagogy in psychology, and animal models of disease. She employs ELISA for biological samples, survey and intervention-based research, and actively encourages undergraduate research participation. Key publications include Kirchner, K.N., Persaud, P.A.*, Bland, C.C.*, Sherman, H. (under review). “Moral Injury in Healthcare Workers: An intervention to mitigate distress.” Nursing Ethics; and Wood Hopkins, M.M., Conn, G., Whatley, M.A., Kirchner, K.N., & Sparks, L.* (2025). “Secondary validation and investigation of the Attitudes Toward Face Masks Scale.” North American Journal of Psychology, 27(4), 1199–1215. Her dissertation titled “Cognitive Consequences of COVID-19 Infection and Vaccination” was completed in 2022 at the University of South Carolina. She has presented on moral injury in healthcare workers, salivary cortisol in students, and role-playing games for teaching at conferences including the Georgia Undergraduate Research Conference (2025), Valdosta State Symposium on Undergraduate Research (2025), Innovative Teaching & Learning Conference (2025), and Blazer Summer Research Institute (2023). Dr. Kirchner serves as the Psychological Sciences representative on the Undergraduate Research Council for 2025-2026.