Sonja D. Winter

Sonja D. Winter

PhD Candidate in Quantitative Psychology

University of California, Merced

Biography

I am currently pursuing my PhD in Quantitative Psychology at UC Merced. My goal is to improve the fit between statistical models and analyses and the research questions that the field of psychology needs answers to. My current research focuses on detecting specification issues in structural equation models through Bayesian estimation. More broadly speaking, I am interested in models of development, structural equation modeling, and the potential benefits of thoughtful application of Bayesian estimation.

Interests

  • Latent measurement models
  • Longitudinal data
  • Mixture modeling
  • Bayesian methods

Education

  • PhD in Quantitative Psychology, ongoing

    UC Merced

  • Msc in Developmental Psychology (cum laude), 2013

    Utrecht University

  • BSc in Developmental Psychology, 2011

    Utrecht University

Experience

 
 
 
 
 

Teaching Assistant

UC Merced

Aug 2016 – Present Merced, California

Courses include:

  • Psychology 010: Analysis of Psychological Data
  • Psychology 010L: Analysis of Psychological Data Lab
  • Psychology 015: Research Methods in Psychology
  • Psychology 105: Advanced Research Methods in Psychology
  • Psychology 202A: Advanced Psychological Statistics I (Graduate level)
 
 
 
 
 

Junior Researcher

Utrecht University

Jan 2014 – Jun 2016 Utrecht, the Netherlands

Department of Methodology and Statistics for the Behavioral and Social Sciences

Lab Coordinator: Rens van de Schoot, PhD

Responsibilities: Gave support at each step of the research cycle (literature re- view, data collection and management, analysis, writing final article or report); Organized meetings, events, and conferences. Communicated with guests and speakers; Put forth new ideas for future research.

 
 
 
 
 

Founder

Winter Statistics

Jan 2014 – Jun 2016 Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Statistical consultancy and support with executing research and analyses. Collaborated with researchers and companies to answer their research questions with the data available; Gave introduction to Statistics workshops at conferences or within companies; Clients included: Free University Amsterdam, Elastic (USA), Lund University (Sweden), Rutgers Foundation.

Recent Publications

A Tutorial on Using The Wambs Checklist to Avoid The Misuse of Bayesian Statistics

Rens van de Schoot, Duco Veen, Laurent Smeets, Sonja D. Winter, Sarah Depaoli
PDF DOI

An illustration of Bayesian approximate measurement invariance with longitudinal data and a small sample size

This article illustrates the Bayesian approximate measurement invariance (MI) approach in Mplus with longitudinal data and small sample …
Sonja D. Winter, Sarah Depaoli
PDF DOI

Implementing Continuous Non-Normal Skewed Distributions in Latent Growth Mixture Modeling: An Assessment of Specification Errors and Class Enumeration

Recent advances have allowed for modeling mixture components within latent growth modeling using robust, skewed mixture distributions …
Sarah Depaoli, Sonja D. Winter, Keke Lai, Kiero Guerra-Peña
PDF DOI
See all publications

Projects

Shiny App: First Bayesian Inference

Contact

  • 5200 Lake Road, Merced, CA 95343
  • Enter the Social Sciences and Management Building and take the stairs to SSM 320 on the third floor
  • Monday 12:00 to 13:00
    Friday 15:00 to 16:00
  • DM Me