From CRMDA
Personnel
The Center for Research Methods and Data Analysis (CRMDA) expects to be adding additional faculty in the coming years. Currently, the following interim Personnel are:
Contents |
Core Personnel
Todd D. Little
Professor
Center Director
Director, Quantitative Training Program, Department of Psychology
Member, Developmental Training Program, Department of Psychology
Director, Social and Behavioral Sciences Methodology minor
Ph.D., 1988, University of California at Riverside
Curriculum Vitae
| Research Areas: |
| Structural equation modeling, longitudinal modeling, selection effects, multiple-group modeling, multilevel modeling, planned and unplanned missing data, model evaluation, measurement and psychometric methods. |
Quantitative Program | Developmental Program | AgencyLab
Paul E. Johnson
Professor
Center Associate Director
Department of Political Science
Ph.D., 1988 Washington University in St. Louis
| Research Areas: |
| Computer simulation, Programming, Generalized Linear Model, Research Methodology |
Carol Woods
Associate Professor
Center Associate Director
Department of Psychology
Ph.D., 2004, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
| Research Areas: |
| My research focuses primarily on improving tools for analyzing categorical data including ordinal measures of association, methods for testing differential item functioning, and item response models with nonnormal latent variables. |
Jason Lee
Center Project Coordinator
Research Associate
Ph.D., 2009, University of Kansas
Curriculum Vitae
| Research Areas: |
| Structural equation modeling, item response theory, differential item functioning, and multilevel modeling. |
Chantelle Dowsett
Research Associate
Ph.D., 2006, University of Texas at Austin
Curriculum Vitae
| Research Areas: |
| Program evaluation, early childhood interventions, longitudinal research methods, secondary data analysis. |
Sadaaki Fukui
Research Associate
Ph.D., 2005, Osaka City University, Japan
| Research Areas: |
| Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed research methods and program evaluation, structural equation modeling and multilevel modeling, intervention and international research in Social Work. |
Brent McPherson
Research Assistant
B.A. and B.S., 2012, University of Kansas
| Research Areas: |
| General and computational neuroscience, structural equation modeling, missing data estimation, and simulation studies. |
Vicki Peyton
Ph.D., 2000, University of Kansas
Lecturer, Psychology and Research in Education
Mijke Rhemtulla
Post-Doctoral Research Associate
Ph.D., University of British Columbia
| Research Areas: |
| Mijke received her PhD in developmental and quantitative psychology from the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on methods and designs that optimize the use of missing data for developmental research, e.g., planned missing data designs for longitudinal models, and problems involving “complicated data”, including categorical variables and multilevel data. |
Graham Rifenbark
Research Assistant
B.A., 2010, University of Kansas
Curriculum Vitae
| Research Areas: |
| Model fit for the cumulative logit proportional odds model with an ordinal outcome, when data is sparse. Other interests include: cross-sectional and longitudinal structural equation modeling, missing data estimation, and mixture models. |
Aki Sato
Visiting (Post-Doctoral) Scholar
Ph.D. , 2011 University of Connecticut
Curriculum Vitae
| Research Areas: |
| Aki received her PhD in Social Work from the University of Connecticut in December 2011. Her research focuses on the impact of pets in people’s lives. In her dissertation, she analyzed the relationship between the strength/quality of social workers’ attachment to their own pets and their professional assessment regarding the roles pets played in clients’ lives by the hierarchical multiple regression and the ANCOVA. Now at KU CRMDA, she is studying SEM and factor analysis to develop/validate a newly constructed pet attachment scale. She is also attending a study group about meta-analysis. |
Alex Schoemann
Post-Doctoral Research Associate
Ph.D., 2011, University of Kansas
| Research Areas: |
| Structural equation modeling, multilevel modeling,multilevel SEM, meta-analysis, computer simulation, and social psychology. |
Jo Eis Barton
Accountant
Phone: 785-864-1269
| Responsibilities: |
| Prepare and monitor annual budgets; Recommend and develop procedures and policies for CRMDA; Invoicing – internally, grants, service agreements, and other entities using CRMDA’s services, monitor and manage collections of the Accounts Receivable and prepare Deposits; Accounts Payable, P-Card Reconciler and Approver, Purchasing; Tuition; Verify all grant expenditures are allowable under OMB Circular A-21 and A-110; Hiring Manager for all positions in the CRMDA; Payroll processing for GRA appointments, student hourly appointments, funding changes; Timekeeper; Supervise office staff |
Jeff Friedrich
Grant Specialist
Phone: 785-864-3353
| Responsibilities: |
| Grant preparation; Grant documentation and effort reporting; WinStat accounts, log-in issues, and general questions; Website maintenance and updates; Requests for assistance with research methods and data analysis; Proof-reading grants, articles, chapters, etc. |
CRMDA Affiliates
Pascal Deboeck
Assistant Professor
Quantitative Psychology
Ph.D., 2007, University of Notre Dame
| Research Areas: |
| Intraindividual Variability, Differential Equation Models, Dynamical Systems. |
Adam Hafdahl
Adjunct Research Associate
Ph.D., 2001, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Curriculum Vitae
| Research Areas: |
| Numerous topics in meta-analysis, with particular attention to correlations, multivariate or clustered effect sizes, missing or "degraded" data, distributions of effect-size parameters, and functions of heterogeneous effect sizes (e.g., meta-analytic path models from correlation matrices). |
Neal Kingston
Professor
Psychology and Research in Education
Director, Center for Educational Testing and Evaluation
Ph.D., 1983, Columbia University
Jacob Fowles
Assistant Professor
School of Public Affairs and Administration
Ph.D., 2010, Martin School of Public Policy and Administration at the University of Kentucky
| Research Areas: |
| My research interests are public budgeting and finance, primary and secondary education finance and policy, and higher education finance and policy. |
David K. Johnson
Associate Professor
Clinical Psychology
Ph.D., 2003, Washington University of St. Louis
Curriculum Vitae
| Research Areas: |
| Gerontology, Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, structural equation modeling and longitudinal methods |
Clinical Program Personal Site
Kristopher J. Preacher
Assistant Professor, Vanderbilt University
Quantitative Psychology
Ph.D., 2003, Ohio State University
| Research Areas: |
| Latent variable analysis, structural equation modeling, correlation and regression analysis, multilevel modeling, and longitudinal modeling. |
William P. Skorupski
Associate Professor, School of Education
Department of Psychology & Research in Education
Program Coordinator for Research, Evaluation, Measurement, & Statistics
Ed.D, Psychometric Methods, University of Massachusetts, 2004
| Research Areas: |
| My primary research interests are in applications of Item Response Theory, including test score scaling, equating, and robust methods of parameter estimation. Additional areas of research interest include the use of Bayesian statistics for solving practical measurement problems and the implementation and evaluation of innovative measurement models, including computer-based tests and performance assessments. |
Amber Watts
Assistant Professor
Clinical Psychology
Lifespan Institute, Gerontology Center
Ph.D., 2009, University of Southern California
| Research Areas: |
| Gerontology, bio-behavioral risk factors for cognitive decline & dementia, health behaviors, structural equation modeling and longitudinal methods, RCT |
Wei Wu
Assistant Professor
Quantitative Psychology
Ph.D., 2008, Arizona State University
| Research Areas: |
| Structural Equation Modeling, Longitudinal Modeling, Missing Data Estimation, Regression Modeling |
Graduate Students
Aaron Boulton
KU Dept. of Psychology
Phone: 785-864-3353
Advisor: Pascal Deboeck &Todd D. Little
| I am a fourth year student in the Quantitative Psychology program. My current research interests in quantitative methods are continuous time models and multilevel structural equation modeling (MSEM). Continuous time models circumvent the problem of lag-dependent results inherent in widely-used techniques for longitudinal data analysis. MSEM is the generalization of latent variable or SEM models to multilevel data structures. I also enjoy applying advanced statistical methods to problems in psychology and education. Currently, I am working with an international team of researchers on the evaluation and dissemination of the KiVa program, an anti-bullying intervention developed in Finland. |
Ian Carroll
KU Dept. of Psychology
Phone: 785-864-3353
Advisor: Carol Woods
| I am a second year graduate student in the Quantitative Psychology program. I recently earned a BA in Psychology with a minor in Statistics from the University of Denver. My research interests are categorical data analysis, psychometrics, and meta-analysis. As far as statistical software is concerned, I have experience with Mplus and R. |
Hsiang-Feng (Melody) Chen
KU Dept. of Education
Phone: 785-864-3353
Advisors: John Poggio and Todd D. Little
Website: Personal Website
| I am a Doctoral Candidate in Educational Psychology and Research (EPR), specializing in Research, Evaluation, Measurement and Statistics (REMS) at KU. My research interests are Item Response Theory, Structural Equation Modeling, cross-cultural studies, large-scale assessment (e.g., Program of International Student Assessment), and students’ self-concepts such as self-efficacy and motivations, particularly as they relate to learning and academic achievement. My most recent research focus is on testing the assessment items for Differential Item Functioning (DIF) between different countries, cultures, or language translations. I have experience in working on statistics and packages like SPSS, LISERL, BILOG-MG, WinGen and SAS. |
Tat Wai Chu
KU Dept. of Mathematics and Dept. of Economics
Phone: 785-864-3353
Advisors: Yaozhong Hu and Ted Juhl
| I am a second year graduate student in both Mathematics and Economics Department. My math research field is stochastic processes and actuarial mathematics; and the research field for econ is econometrics, applied time series analysis, and game theory. My thesis for math is a study on newsvendor solutions in both discrete and continuous settings, with multi-dimensional optimization conditions added in. |
Scott Drotar
KU Dept. of Psychology
Phone: 785-864-3353
Advisor: Pascal Deboeck
| I am a fourth year PhD student in the quant program. I am originally from a small town in Indiana. I graduated from Notre Dame with a bachelors degree in mathematics specializing in life sciences in 2009. My primary research interest is in dynamical systems. Dynamical systems is an area that is used to model change in a system over time, and is especially useful in psychology for modeling intra-individual change in longitudinal studies. |
Beth Grandfield
KU Dept. of Psychology
Phone: 785-864-3353
Advisor: Todd D. Little
| I am a first year graduate student in the Quantitative Psychology program. I recently graduated from California State University, Fullerton with an M.A. in psychology. My research interests include structural equation modeling, model evaluation, missing data designs, and longitudinal modeling. I have experience using SPSS, SAS, and Mplus. |
Mauricio Garnier-Villarreal
KU Dept. of Psychology
Phone: 785-864-3353
Advisors: Todd D. Little and David Johnson
| I am a second year graduate student, come from Costa Rica where I got my BA and Lic in Psychology from the University of Costa Rica. My research interests are structural equation modeling, longitudinal data analysis, missing data, developmental psychology, aging, Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, cognition and emotion. |
Jared Harpole
KU Dept. of Psychology
Phone: 785-864-3353
Advisors: Carol Woods and Todd D. Little
| I am a second year graduate student with a B.S. degree in Business Administration. Prior to graduate school, I spent 7 years working in sales and marketing in the Kansas City area. My current research interests are in categorical data analysis, SEM, kernel density estimation, and missing data. I have experience using SPSS, SAS, LISREL, MPlus, and R. |
Robert Hughes
KU Dept. of Sociology
Phone: 785-864-3353
Advisor: Elif Andac
| I am a 6th year PhD student in the Department of Sociology. Growing up in a small town in southern New Mexico, I graduated with a B.A. in Sociology from New Mexico State University in 2006 and received my Master’s Degree in Sociology from the University of Kansas in 2008. My primary areas of specialization are political and historical sociology and have fostered a methodological interest in longitudinal models, and concept measurement. Currently, I am conducting dissertation research examining the influence of economic and civil society development on the variation of inclusiveness within nationalist state institutions (i.e., citizenship laws) over time. |
Fan Jia
KU Dept. of Psychology
Phone: 785-864-3353
Advisors: Todd D. Little and Wei Wu
| I became a quantitative psychology graduate student in 2010. After getting a master’s degree in Economics in 2005, I spent 4 years working with commercial data in a consulting company in Beijing. My current research interests include: structural equation modeling, multilevel modeling, bootstrapping, and missing data analysis. I have experience using SPSS, SAS and LISREL, and R. |
Terry Jorgensen
KU Dept. of Psychology
Phone: 785-864-3353
Advisors: Todd D. Little
| Terry Jorgensen earned his BS in Psychology and MS in Applied Statistics from Kennesaw State University (just north of Atlanta, GA), where he also worked in the KSU Psychology Department as the undergraduate research lab coordinator. His prior research focused on the teaching of psychology. Terry chose to attend KU's doctoral program based on their outstanding reputation in longitudinal data analysis. As a second year student in the KU quantitative psychology program, my research interests include applied missing data analysis and the evaluation of model fit in the context of structural equation modeling. |
Richard Kinai
KU Dept. of Psychology
Phone: 785-864-3353
Advisor: Todd D. Little & Wei Wu
| A second year graduate student in the quant program, Richard holds a B.Ed degree, and a M.A (Economics) from the University of Kansas. His primary research interests are Structural Equation Modelling, Missing Data, and Longitudinal Data Analysis. |
Kyle Lang
KU Dept. of Psychology
Personal Website
Phone: 785-864-3353
Advisor: Todd D. Little
| I am beginning my fourth year in the Quantitative Psychology Training Program under the supervision of Todd Little. Before entering the program, I received a bachelor’s in psychology with minors in anthropology and quantitative methods from KU. Since beginning graduate training my primary interest has been missing data analysis and the development of new techniques we can employ to address the missing data problem. Incomplete data is one of the most pervasive problems facing the applied researcher today, and I am working to introduce increasingly less biased and more efficient methods of addressing the problem. I am also interested in dynamical systems modeling of intraindividual change, and in the future I would like to combine my interests in missing data and continuous time models to develop strategies for fitting dynamical systems when the observed data are too sparse to estimate the requisite derivatives. |
Luke McCune
KU Dept. of Psychology
Phone: 785-864-3353
Advisor: Todd D. Little
| I am a second year student in the Quantitative Psychology program. I earned a B.A. in Psychology, with minors in Social and Behavioral Science Methodology and Anthropology, from the University of Kansas in 2011. My primary interests in the field relate to structural equation modeling, categorical data analysis, and missing data issues. My substantive research interests outside of quantitative methods focus on the evolutionary function of individual differences, especially personality. |
Sunthud Pornprasertmanit
KU Dept. of Psychology
Personal Website
Phone: 785-864-3353
Advisor: Pascal Deboeck
| I am a third-year student in the quantitative psychology program. I am originally from Bangkok, Thailand. My primary research interest is the problem of model evaluation in structural equation modeling. Now, I am having fun with developing two R packages: simsem and semTools. The simsem package aims to generate data and help researchers to do a simulation study. The semTools package collects many useful tools for running structural equation modeling in R. |
Leslie Shaw
KU Dept. of Psychology
Phone: 785-864-3353
Advisor: Todd D. Little
| I am a first year graduate student in the Quantitative Psychology program. My path to this program started with an undergraduate degree in mathematics, followed by work in systems analysis, a masters in agency counseling, and research coordination and data management for a non-profit in Durham, North Carolina. I am interested in program evaluation, missing data, and dynamic systems. Currently I have experience with SAS, SPSS, and Microsoft Access databases. |
Stephen Short
KU Dept. of Psychology
Phone: 785-864-3353
Advisor: Todd D. Little
| I am a fourth year quantitative student working under the directions of Todd D. Little, PhD. and Patricia H. Hawley, PhD. My primary research interests include instrument development and validation, and the advancement, refinement and application of structural equation modeling (SEM), factor analysis, longitudinal modeling, and meta-analysis. Currently, I am examining the use of SEM for testing interactions in experimental designs. My main applied research area with Dr. Hawley involves examining longitudinal change in attitudes toward and knowledge of evolution in college samples using the previously validated Evolutionary Attitudes and Literacy Survey (EALS; Hawley, Short, McCune, Osman, & Little, 2011). Using the EALS, I am also beginning to examine regional differences across the U.S. with GIS techniques. Additionally, I have a strong interest in teaching and advancing statistics/methods education in the social sciences. |
Mian Wang
KU Dept. of Psychology
Phone: 785-864-3353
Advisor: Carol Woods
| I joined the quantitative psychology program in fall 2011. As an international student from China, I have spent the past 6 years in New York state. I graudated with B.A. in both Public Relations and Philosophy-Psychology from SUNY Oswego, and later received my M.A. degree in general psychology from SUNY New Paltz. Although I have broad interest in SEM and IRT, my primary research interest focuses on differential item functioning and its application in cross-cultural studies. |
Current CRMDA Interns
Skyler Adams
| I am a senior in pursuit of a Psychology BA and a minor in Social and Behavioral Sciences Methodology. As an intern, I have learned how to use online survey building programs (i.e., REDCap and Qualtrics) and have helped to set up surveys for a grant-funded research project at the University of Kansas. I also assisted with a 3-hour seminar on using REDCap for research (and presented a section comparing REDCap to Qualtrics). I have also gained experience coding in R and SAS in the context of Regression, ANOVA, and Categorical Data Analysis. |
Clinton Bell
| My research interests include Bayesian neural network modeling and biostatistics. Through my CRMDA internship I have learned critical programming and statistical skills in R through regression, ANOVA, Lavaan, and RSiena opportunities. Last semester I used these skills to translate functions into R, compare random-number generators between Matlab and R, and evaluate client data in RSiena. This semester my focus is on developing an fMRI curriculum for the Neuroimaging Data Analysis workgroup while continuing to build my knowledge in R and Bayesian modeling. |
Hayley Burghart
| I am a senior pursuing a BA in Psychology as well as a minor in Social and Behavioral Sciences Methodology. My research interests include studies in education interventions, children's motivation, stress reduction therapy, neuropathology and longitudinal studies. Psychological statistics is of course another interest of mine along with teaching and working with children. I plan on attending graduate school for Quantitative and Clinical psychology after obtaining my undergraduate degree. |
Kelly Crowe
| I am finishing a second Bachelor's degree in Psychology with a minor in Social and Behavioral Sciences Methodology. I earned a B.A. from K.U. in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, which had a focuses on qualitative research methods. My research interests include social and cultural influences/effects on people and groups; I tend to have a social activist approach and am interested in influencing public policy.I am interested in missing data and helping researchers to implement planned missing data designs. I intend to pursue a graduate degree, perhaps combining both qualitative and quantitative methods into my research. |
Patrick Edmonds
| I am pursuing the B.Sc. in Behavioral Neuroscience with the SBSM Minor and a Minor in Mathematics. My main research interests are statistical applications in Computational Neuroscience and what benefits those statistical inferences can give to various subsets of the field. I intend on applying to graduate programs in statistics and neuroscience which emphasize the development of new computational methodologies. To that end, I have become an intern at the center to gather experience with various modeling techniques and programs that handle large sets of data. |
Brad Fasbinder
| I am currently a senior majoring in behavioral neuroscience and minoring in SBSM. I am mainly intersted in neuroimaging analyses, along with any research regarding psychophysiology. My future pursuits involves graduate school for cognitive neuroscience. |
Caleb Gardner
| I am currently a senior pursuing a BS in Mathematics, a BGS in Psychology and a minor in SBSM. I am interested in social psychology and new statistical methodologies. After I graduate I plan on joining the USAF to be a pilot. |
Bob Golen Jr.
| I am a junior pursuing a BA in Psychology with a minor in Social and Behavioral Science Methodology. My admittedly broad academic interests focus on the manner in which information is collected, presented, and publicly interpreted; both through quantitative and literary means. I find that these apply to various topics, ranging from public policy to social sciences and even athletics. Right now, a personal dream post-graduation job would entail being hired by a MLB organization to serve as an advanced scout... Yes, kind of like in Moneyball. |
Claire Gorey
| I am a senior pursuing a BA in Psychology and Applied Behavioral Science with a minor in Social and Behavior Sciences and Methodology. My research interests revolve around the area of addiction and how addiction relates to stress. I have been examining this relationship through psychophysiological measures. In the future, I hope to use neuroscience methodology as well. After graduating, I plan on applying to a Clinical Psychology PhD program next year. |
Youngha Oh
| I am a senior pursuing a BA in Psychology with a minor in Social and Behavioral Sciences Methodology. My research interests are in quantitative methods in social behavioral research. I am especially interested in structural equation modeling (SEM), longitudinal analysis, missing data and model fit. Following graduation, I intend to continue my education by pursuing a graduate degree in quantitative statistics and research. |
Jay Patel
| I am a senior pursuing the BA in Psychology with a minor in Social and Behavioral Sciences Methodology. My research interests are along the lines of health psychology. Recently, I have grown interested in cardiovascular function and health psychology. I have also started to grow an interest in SEM and R. After my undergraduate studies, I plan on applying for a PhD Clinical Health Psychology programs. |
Pavel Panko
| I am a fourth-year student pursuing the B.A. in Psychology as well as a minor in Social and Behavioral Sciences Methodology. My primary research interests are in quantitative methodology and organizational psychology. More specifically, I am specifically interested in model fit and evaluation in structural equation modeling as well as optimizing team effectiveness & productivity in multi-racial/cultural companies. After graduating, I plan on applying to PhD programs in both Quantitative Psychology and Industrial-Organizational Psychology. |
Corbin Quick
| I am a fourth-year undergraduate co-majoring in psychology and economics. I have interned at the CRMDA since Spring, 2012. Some of my interests include quantitative methods in social and organizational research, the development of open-source statistical tools, and differential item functioning/measurement non-invariance detection. Currently, I am writing my undergraduate thesis on the topic of measurement invariance in longitudinal models. |
Kayci Vickers
| I am a senior pursuing the BS in Behavioral Neuroscience with a minor in Social and Behavioral Sciences Methodology. My research interests are mainly in therapy techniques and recovery of cognitive function after trauma, problem solving and learning, and data analysis. After obtaining my undergraduate degree, I plan on applying for a Clinical Psychology PhD program and eventually practicing Clinical Neuropsychology. |