Jolynn Pek

Welcome

I am a sixth year doctoral student in the Quantitative Psychology Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill working under Dr. Robert C. MacCallum. I have recently completed a Master's in Science in Biostatistics from the School of Public Health under the direction of Dr. Lloyd Edwards.

Before joining UNC, I completed my Master's in Social Science at the Department of Psychology from the National University of Singapore under Dr. George D. Bishop. While working on my Master's, I spent 6 months as a visiting scholar at the Duke Behavioral Medicine Research Center under the direction of Dr. Redford B. Williams.

Following the completion of my Master's degree in Singapore, I worked for a year at the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University under Dr. Rick H. Hoyle. I was a member of the Data Center for the Fast Track Project in addition to collaborating with Dr. Laura S. Richman from the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience.

Research Interests

My research is broadly motivated by promoting the sound use of advanced methods to social science applications. Primarily, my quantitative interest is in methodological issues concerning latent variable models, especially the sensitivity of results to different modeling conditions such as cases and model fit. These latent variable models include structural equation models (SEM), factor analysis models, multilevel models and latent growth curve models. A second area of research involves statistical graphics, and broadly concerns developing visualization tools to aid analysts in the modeling process.

Stemming from my previous training in Applied Social Psychology and recent training in Biostatistics, my collaborative work mainly involves the study and application of models that are developed for longitudinal data structures which tend to have the added complexity of missing data. Currently, I collaborate with Michael Willoughby at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute and the UNC Aging Institute .

To find out more about my more recent work, please refer to my curriculum vitae.