2019 Way Klingler Young Scholar Award Recipient

Assistant Professor of Psychology

In a short amount of time at Marquette, Dr. Brooke Magnus has made valuable contributions to the Psychology Department through her scholarship, teaching and service.

Magnus, an assistant professor of psychology, has sought to make strides in developing item response theory measurement models for survey data and addressing the shortcomings that are often overlooked in clinical research, particularly as related to symptom assessment. She has developed IRT models to accommodate zero inflation, and her dissertation involved developing an IRT model for open-ended frequency data focused on overcoming response bias.

The semester sabbatical that the Way Klingler Young Scholar Award provides will afford Magnus the opportunity to advance both her independent research program as well as her collaborative research agenda. One exciting aspect will be attending a workshop on Bayesian statistical modeling, which will help her address computational challenges that arise when working with multidimensional item response data.

“Since joining the faculty at Marquette, I have helped train multiple graduate students
in the application of advanced psychometric methods,” Magnus says. “As a result of these mentoring experiences, I have several ongoing projects with students. A semester sabbatical will not only provide me with the time required to see these projects to completion, but it will allow me to explore and develop additional collaborations with our graduate students.”

The award includes a five-year, $3.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, where Magnus is a co-investigator seeking to improve patient classification and outcome measurement in traumatic brain injury.