She is the William and Jeannette Smith Chair of psychology at Oberlin College, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Adolescence, and founder of 1step2life.
[3] Darling joined the faculty at Dickinson College following her post-doc fellowship for two years before accepting a position at Penn State University (PSU).
[3] While at PSU, she collaborated with Linda Caldwell to develop the "Structure of Adolescent Leisure" project, which allowed undergraduates to enter multi-disciplinary field research.
[4] Darling later authored a study published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence which concluded that young boys were more vulnerable when it comes to dating.
[3] During her short tenure at Bard, she co-published Theory, measurement, and methods in the study of family influences on adolescent smoking with Patricio Cumsille through the Addiction journal.