Welcome

Thank you for visiting my web site. I am a Professor and Director of the Quantitative Psychology Program and L.L. Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory of the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. On my web site, I include links to many of my publications and associated supplementary material like computer code and technical appendices. I also post information for prospective graduate students who may be interested in working with me.

Commitment to Equity and Inclusion

I denounce racism and all other forms of discrimination and am personally committed to helping to achieve a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive science of quantitative psychology. In both my teaching and research, I welcome and seek to foster relationships with students and colleagues of all races, ages, disability statuses, ethnicities, family or marital statuses, gender identities or expressions, languages, national origins, political affiliations, religions, sexual orientations, and socio-economic statuses. At times when I am prepared to accept new graduate students, individuals from historically under-represented backgrounds are especially encouraged to apply. Please also see the Code of Conduct for our Program, describing expectations for Thurstone Lab members.

Research Interests

The overarching goals of my program of research are to propose, evaluate, and apply quantitative modeling techniques to improve research on the development of negative social and health behaviors and psychopathology. I have focused particularly on generalized and nonlinear latent variable models, a broad class of models which includes multilevel models, factor analysis, structural equation models, latent curve models, item response theory models, latent class models, and mixture models.