Amy Halberstadt received an A.B. from Colgate University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University. After 19 continuous years of being a student, she apprenticed with a master cabinetmaker for a year, but returned to Hopkins to complete her dissertation in 1981. She served time at Vassar College, moving to North Carolina State University, where she is Professor of Psychology.

As a social developmental psychologist, Dr. Halberstadt studies how individuals develop their behavioral and emotional styles and their social interaction skills. Her newest interests include the intersections of race, culture, gender, and family in the socialization of emotion. Specifically, she is interested in (a) anger within families and how it is experienced and expressed in the various parent-parent/parent-child relationships, (b) children's and adults' beliefs about and behaviors regarding emotion, and how these are influenced by culture and race, and ( c) raising children in more gender-free ways. In each of these domains, she is interested in process. For example, with regard to children's beliefs about emotion, she is interested in how parental emotional expression affects children's beliefs and how that in turn affects their behavior with others.

At NCSU Dr. Halberstadt teaches developmental psychology, psychology of gender, and psychology of emotion at both undergraduate and graduate levels. She is also on the Executive Council for Women and Gender Studies at the university, a member of the Center for Developmental Science, and a co-Editor of Social Development. She has been awarded several research grants from NIMH and NSF, and is currently working on a funded project called CUED IN -- Children's Understanding of Emotion in Dyadic Interaction. Please see her website regarding recent publications.