Melissa Herzog

  • Associate Teaching Professor
  • Academic Advisor, Youth Development

Dr. Melissa Herzog earned her PhD in Family & Human Development from Arizona State University in 2007, along with a Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy in 2004. Since joining the Mizzou faculty, Dr. Herzog’s work has focused on prevention and intervention approaches to promote thriving in social and romantic relationships, including leadership positions in applied curriculum development and program evaluation. She is Co-PI for ShowMe Healthy Relationships, a federally-funded relationship education program serving single, adult Missourians. Within this work, Dr. Herzog is particularly interested in investigating correlates of response to intervention as well as the impact of relationship education for justice-involved individuals.

Dr. Herzog’s prior experiences include evaluation management for a school-based social competence intervention for middle school youth on the autism spectrum.As an instructor, Dr. Herzog focuses on positive youth development theory and programming and strives to support graduate students to apply these principles and practices across a multitude of youth work settings. At the undergraduate level, Dr. Herzog also coordinates the popular Successful Adulting course, an interdisciplinary effort to support emerging adult students in their own learning and growth in multiple arenas of every day life.

Areas of Expertise

  • Positive youth development theory and programming
  • Relationship education implementation and program evaluation
  • Youth and emerging adult sexuality and relationship education
  • Social competence development intervention for adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders
  • Research at HDFS