About CenterStat

What We Do

CenterStat is an organization dedicated to the dissemination of quantitative methods to scientists and researchers worldwide, with emphasis on the behavioral, health, and social sciences. We offer online training through livestream workshops and asynchronous access to previously recorded workshops. Our workshops place an equal balance between the core aspects of the underlying statistical models and the thoughtful, practical application and interpretation of models fitted to empirical data. We are not affiliated with any commercial software company, and conduct demonstrations using a variety of available software packages.

Founders

dan-bauer

Daniel J. Bauer, Ph.D.

Dan Bauer is a Professor and the Director of the L.L. Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina. He teaches graduate- and undergraduate-level courses in statistical methods for which he has won teaching awards from the University of North Carolina and from the American Psychological Association.  Endeavoring to make advanced statistical techniques more accessible, Dan has spent the last 15 years developing and teaching workshops on a variety of topics in both the United States and abroad, including multilevel modeling, mixture modeling, longitudinal data analysis, structural equation modeling, latent curve analysis, missing data analysis, measurement, and integrative data analysis. His research interests lie at the intersection of quantitative and developmental psychology, particularly the development of problem and health-related behaviors over childhood and adolescence. He has published over 100 scientific papers, served as Associate Editor for Psychological Methods, currently serves on the editorial boards of several journals, and has reviewed grants for the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and the Institute of Educational Sciences. He received an early career award from the American Psychological Association in 2009. For more details, see his academic web page.

patrick-curran

Patrick J. Curran, Ph.D.

Patrick Curran is a Professor in the L.L. Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Patrick has dedicated much of his career to the teaching and dissemination of advanced quantitative methods and has won awards in recognition of teaching excellence from UNC and from the American Psychological Association. Over the past 20 years, Patrick has taught over 100 national and international workshops on structural equation modeling, multilevel modeling, latent curve analysis, longitudinal data analysis, and general linear modeling. Patrick’s program of research is primarily focused on the development and evaluation of statistical models of change over time, particularly as applied to studies of adolescent substance use. He thus draws on experiences from his own program of research on high-risk child development to guide and inform his quantitative teaching. He has published over 100 scientific papers and chapters and has co-authored a textbook on latent curve modeling with Ken Bollen. Patrick has served as Associate Editor for Psychological Methods and currently serves on the editorial boards of seven scientific journals. For more details, see his academic web page.

History

Patrick and Dan first began working together in 1998 and since that time have collaborated extensively in teaching, consulting, research, and community service. In 2008, they founded Curran-Bauer Analytics to provide both advanced training and to serve as an information source on advanced quantitative methods for researchers in the social, health, and behavioral sciences. Together Patrick and Dan have taught more than 5000 graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, faculty members, and research scientists. Their in-person workshops have been held in the U.S., Canada, Korea, Portugal, Switzerland, Norway, and Ireland, and have been hosted by multiple professional scientific organizations and the National Institutes of Health. Additionally, they are strongly committed to the dissemination of information about advanced quantitative techniques, both through traditional academic outlets, such as published articles, as well as through online and social media resources.

Initially, Patrick and Dan taught all workshops themselves and in-person. Over time, they began to add other instructors with expertise on additional topics, handpicking experts in the field with exceptional teaching ability. In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic prompted Patrick and Dan to move from in-person to live-streaming delivery of course content. Initially born of necessity, this move to online training revealed new opportunities, including the ability to offer more courses concurrently, reach a worldwide audience, and reduce financial barriers for participants through drastically lower tuition and no travel costs.  Embracing this technology, Patrick and Dan founded the Center for Statistical Training, or CenterStat, to vastly expand access and dissemination of online training opportunities. Through CenterStat the world’s top experts in quantitative and research methodology can offer both livestreaming and self-paced online training courses on a range of topics from introductory to advanced.

Philosophy and Mission

Drawing on their original training in Developmental and Clinical Psychology, respectively, Dan and Patrick are each deeply dedicated to the embedding of advanced quantitative methods in meaningful research applications across the behavioral, educational, health, and social sciences (and beyond). Their motivating philosophy is to provide training experiences that balance rigorous treatment of the underlying methods and models with practical guidance on the analysis of empirical data, enabling researchers to draw valid theoretical inferences about the research hypotheses under study. The overarching goal of all of our workshops is to provide participants with a thorough understanding of the relevant methods along with specific skills and abilities to apply these methods to their own data.

The guiding mission of CenterStat is to empower scientists to conduct the highest quality empirical research possible to meaningfully contribute to a better world.