Linda M. Collins, PhD
Director, The Methodology Center, Penn State University
Design, Measurement, and Statistical Methodology; Adaptive Design
Linda M. Collins, Ph.D., is Director of The Methodology Center and Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Collins is interested in design, measurement, and statistical methodology for prevention and treatment research. Her current interests include phased experimental approaches for optimization of behavioral interventions for prevention and treatment of health disorders; applying ideas from engineering, such as control theory, to intervention optimization; and statistical methods for longitudinal research, particularly Latent Transition Analysis (LTA), a method for fitting models of discrete development. She is Principal Investigator of the Center for Prevention and Treatment Methodology, a P50 Center funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse since 1996; one of the Investigators of the Tobacco Intervention Laboratory, a P50 funded by the National Cancer Institute; and is co-PI of an NIH Roadmap grant that is exploring how to express behavioral interventions as dynamical systems. Dr. Collins has received the Cattell Award for outstanding early career contributions to multivariate behavioral research; the Society for Prevention Research’s President’s Award; and two awards from the Pennsylvania State University: the Faculty Scholar Medal in the Social and Behavioral Sciences, and the Pattishall Outstanding Research Achievement Award. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science, and is a past president of the Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology and the Society for Prevention Research.
Selected Publications:
Collins, L. M., & Lanza, S. T., (2010). Latent class and latent transition analysis: With applications in the social, behavioral, and health sciences. New York: Wiley.
Murphy, S.A., Collins, L.M., & Rush, A.J. (2007). Special issue of Drug and Alcohol Dependence: Customizing treatment to the patient: Adaptive treatment strategies. Elsevier.
Dziak, J., Nahum-Shani, I. R., Collins, L.M. (in press). Multilevel factorial experiments for developing behavioral interventions: Power, sample size, and resource considerations. Psychological Methods.
Baker, T.B., Mermelstein, R.J., Collins, L.M., Piper, M.E., Jorenby, D.E., Smith, S.S., Schlam, T.R. Cook, J.W., & Fiore, M.C. (2011). New methods for tobacco dependence treatment research. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 41, 192-207. PMCID: PMC3073306
Collins, L.M., Baker, T.B., Mermelstein, R.J., Piper, M.E., Jorenby, D.E., Smith, S.S., Schlam, T.R., Cook, J.W., & Fiore, M.C. (2011). The Multiphase Optimization Strategy for engineering effective tobacco use interventions. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 41, 208-226. PMCID: PMC3053423
Zafra-Cabeza, A., Rivera, D.E., Collins, L.M., Ridao, M.A., & Camacho, E.F. (2011). A risk-based model predictive control approach to adaptive interventions in behavioral health. IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, 19, 891-901. PMCID: PMC3107527
Navarro-Barrientos, J.-E., Rivera, D.E., & Collins, L.M. (2011). A dynamical model for describing behavioural interventions for weight loss and body composition change. Mathematical and Computer Modelling of Dynamical Systems, 17, 183-203. PMCID: PMC3111923
Valentine, J.C., Flay, B.R., Biglan, A., Boruch, R.F., Castro, F.G., Collins, L.M., Kellam, S., Moscicki, E.K., & Schinke, S. (2011). Replication in Prevention Science. Prevention Science, 12, 103-117.
Tan, X., Dierker, L., Rose, J., Li, R., & Tobacco Etiology Research Network. (2011). How spacing of data collection may impact estimates of substance use. Substance Use and Misuse, 46, 758-768. PMCID: PMC3107528
Cleveland, M.J., Collins, L.M., Lanza, S.T., Greenberg, M.T., & Feinberg, M.E. (2010). Does individual risk moderate the effect of contextual-level protective factors? A latent class analysis of substance use. Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the Community, 38(3), 213-228. PMCID: PMC2898733
Lanza, S.T., & Collins, L.M. (2010). Modeling multidimensional sexual risk behavior using latent class analysis. In L. Passero, & C. Sgariglia (Eds.), Sexual Risk Behaviors (pp. 119-124). Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers Inc.
Bray, B.C., Lanza, S. T., & Collins, L. M. (2010). Modeling relations among discrete developmental processes: A general approach to associative latent transition analysis. Structural Equation Modeling, 17, 541-569. PMCID: PMC3094019