Whitney Shepherd

Whitney Shepherd Professional Headshot
  • BA (2022) University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS

Contact Info

Dole Human Development Center
1000 Sunnyside Avenue
LAWRENCE, KS 66045

Biography —

My research interests broadly include identifying and understanding underlying factors that contribute to and maintain anxiety in children. Specifically, I aim to investigate the role that internal, transdiagnostic factors (emotion dysregulation, attentional biases) and parenting factors (accommodation) play in the onset and maintenance of anxiety. Ultimately, I am interested in how these factors can contribute to the improvement of evidence-based interventions among youth with anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Selected Publications —

LaPoint, S.C., Simmons, G.L., Heinly, J., Delgado, D., Shepherd, W.S., Brookman-Frazee, L., Storch, E.A., & Maddox, B.B. (2024). “Education would be step number one”: Community mental health clinicians’ training and support needs to treat anxiety in autistic youth. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 117

Storch, E. A., & Shepherd, W. S. (2023). Improving access in 2023: Evidence-based psychotherapy for autistic youth with anxiety. Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, 87(1),1–5. https://doi.org/10.1521/bumc.2023.87.1.1

Selected Presentations —

Shepherd, W. S., Sansone, H. N., Smarason, O., Ayton, D. M., Palo, A. D., Candelari, A. E., Guzick, A. G., & Storch, E. A. (2023, November). Examining anxiety sensitivity and distress tolerance in relation to family accommodation among anxious youth. Poster presented at the 2023 Texas Psychological Association Convention, Houston, Texas. 

Shepherd, W. S., Bivins, E. J., Cho, H. E., Guzick, A. G., & Storch, E. A. (2023, May). Examining the relationship between aggression and emotion regulation within misophonia. Poster presented at the 2023 Association of Psychological Science Convention, Washington D.C. 

Shepherd, W. S.,Schadegg, M. J., & Dixon, L. J. (2021, September). Testing the association between emotion regulation and the contrast avoidance model. Poster presented at the Mississippi Psychological Association 72nd Annual Convention, Biloxi, Mississippi.