About

This is a bit about me, my passions, and my interests....

“What nature hath joined together, multiple regression analysis cannot put asunder.” 

― Richard E. Nisbett

I am passionate about education.

I teach statistical and research methods (software listed below). These classes help prepare students to consume and produce scientific knowledge. Students also learn the secrets of reading and writing primary research in psychology. I see my courses as important for the discipline and also for life beyond the classroom. With this in mind, I approach teaching with three main questions. (1) How can I best present the material so that students can grab it and run with it? (2) How can I help students to write in their voice along with the expectations of the discipline? (3) What do I hope students take from the class today and continue to return to 5 and 10 years from now? As much I lead in the classroom, I also learn along the way. Students have taught me a lot since I joined EMU in 2015. Each term, I change parts of the course based on student feedback. Practice, feedback, and practice some more are core features of each class. This is true for me too. I am always striving to meet students where they are so that they can achieve their goals.

I am curious about the consequences of poor sleep.

A single night of poor sleep can lead people to do or say things they next day that they wish they hadn't. This is also true for parents and children. For example, poor sleep makes it harder for parents to keep their cool or a child to stay on task. Between age 2 and 4, kids stop napping, start resisting going to sleep, and may need comfort after waking during the night. With sleep itself changing, it's difficult to understand how different sleep behaviors influence daytime behaviors and vice versa. Parenting, sleep, and daytime behavior are my core research interests. Specifically, I study the relation between sleep and parent–child communication. Well, I do this with many students—undergraduate and graduate—as well as colleagues. We measure sleep with questionnaires, daily sleep diaries, and actigraphy (watch-like devices). We observe parents and children interacting at home and in laboratory tasks. One of my favorite parts about research is collaborating with students and colleagues. 

I spend considerable time reading about methods...

So many methods—research, data analysis in R, statistical analyses, computer programming, writing, teaching, and conquering procrastination. Below, I've listed the software/websites I use most of which are available for Linux, MacOS, and Windows systems. I regularly visit blog aggregators about statistics and R to keep up with advances in methodology as well as teaching. I've also found the webcomic xkcd or the Wait but Why blog to be a good place to go for a bit of uplifting nerd humor. There are a host of videos on YouTube I find amusing, including the beats of Statz 4 Life, the poetic styling of Tim Minchin's Storm, the tension between science and the media covered by John Oliver, and the catchy lyrical styling of James Cordon in a riff-off with Neil Patrick Harris. Also, a special shout out to the Quantitude podcast for being a weekly source of humor and information. Lastly, a huge thanks to the graduate students in PSY 600 in Fall 2019 who created a fantastic lyrical ode to statistics featuring the music of Hamilton. Yes I linked to this video on the home page, too. It's just too amazing not to share.

Let's connect

I'm most active on Twitter and occasionally check in on Facebook and LinkedIn