Quantitative Psychology

[baby doll couture]

Has anybody heard?

[vokal9031]

What do you mean?

[vokal9031]

Has anyone heard about any schools/programs with quantitative psychologists working within the realm of neuroimaging (MRI brain research)?

[stueller]

UIUC had someone when I was looking at grad schools a few years ago. Missouri-Columbia has a job search to hire an MRI quantitative psychologist. If the position is filled, they will start next fall.

[vokal9031]

Nice...I'll take a look at their site...Thanks!

[girlfromcountyhell]

Yay Quant! I applied to:

UNC-Chapel Hill

University of British Columbia

Washington University in St. Louis

Arizona State

University of Montana (my undergrad institution)

Boston College

University of Washington

Any other Quant people out there?

[cupcake_phd]

did boston college even TAKE any psychology students for next fall?

[girlfromcountyhell]

 

cupcake_phd said:

did boston college even TAKE any psychology students for next fall?

I don't know about any psych students, but I know they didn't take any into Quant. It's too new. Their faculty members are both fresh out of grad school (they got their Phds in 2008) so they decided to not take Quant students. As for the rest, I think they generally take 7 new students total each year? But maybe this year was different.

[vokal9031]

Nice...congrats on your acceptances thus far. What are your interests in quant?

[girlfromcountyhell]

Nice...congrats on your acceptances thus far. What are your interests in quant?

Broadley, the General Linear Model, especially multiple regression, factor analysis, and structural equation modeling. In terms of substantive interest, I'm fascinated my measures of personality such as the Big 5 and how those traits may not be completely orthogonal, thus calling the theory into question. I also have some experience with latent class and mixture models, although I'm not completely sold on those. If I study those, I will mainly be interested in how the number of groups is derived...so more methodological in that sense.

I'm not positive what I want to study yet, which I see as a good thing about the Quant field as a whole. As a professor put it, you probably don't even know that what you will study exists yet, since the undergrad Quant experience can only be so broad.

How about you?

[vokal9031]

Awesome...I'm actually interested in meta-analyses, mixed effects model (regression), as well as GLM, and just better statistical methodologies to decrease error, or account for error, within research investigations. Just as you've stated, being that this is such a broad study to get into and that there are so many avenues to explore, it's really hard for me to actually narrow down what I'd really like to "quanitfy" if I were to ever get into a program. I've always been interested in the brain and its biological effects on behavior and/or memory, which lead me to the occupation I hold today. I currently work in MRI research and I mainly work with patients whom are demented, or patients with swift decreases in motor functions - Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), or other biopsychological pathology that significantly effect their behavior/memory. In our lab, we collect many datasets on all different types of patients, Alzheimer's Disease (AD), Mild Cognitive Impairments (MCI), and normal healthy controls (CN) of course. With these data sets we obtain volumetrics on their structural brain tissues, measuring gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) atrophy, perfusion, measuring the amount of Cerebral Blood Flow (CBF) in different types of patients' brains, etc..., both cross-sectionally and longitudinally...and its effects on above stated symptoms. I'd definitely like to keep working in this field as there is always data and theories of brain research to investigate, but researching some of the schools that have Quant don't really have much in MRI research (maybe I'm not looking in the right places or I maybe just overlooking them). So, it's possible that I may have to broaden my quantitative interests even more in order to incorporate MRI research in which I may also apply to programs in Biostatistics as well.