People

Professor Theodore Walls

Dr. Walls is Professor of Psychology at the University of Rhode Island. His extensive background in applied quantitative methods has led him into a wide range of substantive inquiries. His influential work on intensive longitudinal data analysis for health behavioral studies focused on the development of cutting-edge applied statistical methods, research designs and innovative empirical demonstrations. In this work, he has utilized and extended approaches in the structural equation modeling, time series and multilevel modeling domains. This involves identifying, consolidating, developing, and disseminating statistical methods that can be used to analyze these data, particularly with respect to uncovering underlying functional processes. He is co-editor of an influential volume on longitudinal methods from Oxford University Press and has served extensively on advisory boards and panels regarding longitudinal design and analysis at NIH, NSF, NSERC and in the EU, Asia, and Russia. 

He has been a featured speaker at institutes sponsored by NHLBI, the Psychometric Society, and the American Psychological Association, the Psychometric Society, and the American Psychological Society. He is a 2004 recipient of a Research Scholar Award from the Murray Research Center at Harvard University. He was a Research Scientist at Yale University and completed post-doctoral training at the Methodology Center at Penn State. He was a 2007 recipient of a five-year research scholar award from the American Cancer Society to develop engineering-based models of self-regulation of smoking behavior. His current work involves development of technologies and inferential methods for tracking of health behaviors.


Current Graduate Students

Mariyam Abbas, MS.

Mariyam is a first-year student in the Behavioral Science PhD program with a focus on Health Psychology. Prior to starting the program, Mariyam received M.A. in Psychology with specialization in Clinical Psychology from Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh India; and worked as clinical psychology intern at the Psychiatry department, King George’s Medical University, Lucknow, India. Mariyam completed B.A from Avadh Girls’ Degree College, University of Lucknow, India, with majors in Psychology and English; and minor in Political Science. During her Bachelors, She developed and implemented the ‘Child Meliorism Project’ at two government primary schools in Lucknow, India for positive transformation of underprivileged students belonging to lower socio-economic backgrounds, and received a fellowship by Asha for Education, Zurich, Switzerland. She has been recipient of distinguished awards for her academics, extracurriculars and social work.


Current Undergraduate Students

  • Ella Fink
  • Julia Wood

Former Graduate Students

  • Coral Shuster (Doctoral Graduate) is now at Brown.
  • Daniel Smith (Doctoral Graduate) is now at Springfield College.
  • Valerie Ryan (Master’s participant) is now at NIH.
  • Annie Fairlie (Doctoral Graduate) is now a Research Associate Professor at University of Washington.
  • Delphine Courvoisier (Former Postdoc) is professor at University Hospitals, Geneva.
  • Son Hai Nguyen (Former Postdoc) is professor at the Hanoi University of Science and Technology

Former Undergraduate Students

  • Caitlyn Martinez
  • Abbi Coria