Background

Abigail T. Panter, PhD (1989, New York University), is a Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Professor of Psychology and member of the L. L. Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory at the University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill.

Her work involves developing research designs and data-analytic strategies for applied health problems such as HIV/AIDS and substance abuse. Her publications are in the areas of measurement and test theory, multivariate data modeling, program evaluation design, and individual differences (especially personality).

Dr. Panter is conducting on a national study, The Educational Diversity Project (EDP), that examines links between race and other factors and educational diversity in over 8,000 incoming law students at 64 ABA-approved law schools. As part of the EDP, Panter and her collaborators (Daye, Allen, & Wightman) have tracked law students from their first contact with the law school application process (registration for the Law School Admission Test) through law school graduation. They have collected baseline survey data, pre-graduation survey data, student focus group data in each year, and archival information about standardized test taking, application behaviors, student performance after the first law school year, and attributes of the undergraduate and law school institutions. A data collection effort focused on law school faculty is underway.

Dr. Panter regularly consults with federal agencies on grant review, serves on several national committees and editorial boards in social/personality psychology and quantitative methods, and is a Fellow of APA. She is coeditor of The Sage Handbook of Methods in Social Psychology (2004) and three volumes on program evaluation and measuring outcomes for HIV/AIDS multisite projects and coauthor of an online knowledge base for HIV/AIDS care.

Dr. Panter has received numerous prizes for her teaching in quantitative methods, including the Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Professorship (2008-2013), the 2003 American Psychological Association’s Jacob Cohen Award for Distinguished Teaching and Mentoring (Division 5: Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics), and UNC's Carlyle Sitterson Award for Freshman Teaching (2007) and Tanner Award (1993), both of which recognize university-wide excellence in teaching at the undergraduate level. She is also a four-time winner of her department’s professor-of-the-year teaching award, has received UNC’s ACCESS Award for her work teaching students with learning disabilities, and is on the executive committee of UNC’s Academy of Distinguished Teaching Scholars.