David Towers, University of Illinois Rate Professors

David Towers

Courses9
Reviews11

Rate This Professor

School: University of Illinois Springfield
Campus: Springfield
Department: Psychology
Email address: Join to see
Phone: Join to see
Location: 1 University Plz
Springfield, IL - 62703
Dates at University of Illinois: December 2011 - November 2019
Office Hours: Join to see

Social Profile:

Join to see

11 Reviews Pending Approval

Biography

University of Illinois Springfield Springfield - Psychology

Researcher and Statistician
Research
David
Towers
Macomb, Illinois
I’m a researcher with 20+ years of experience in research design, implementation, and statistical analysis. I have worked on a wide variety of studies, focusing primarily on human behavior, physiology, and more recently surveys.

I also have expertise in programming, and frequently develop custom software solutions for data collection, management, and analysis. As an example, I developed a widely used GUI-based program (QRSTool) to increase efficiency and accuracy in the analysis of heart rate variability. For my dissertation (and later publication) I developed a Matlab program to estimate internal consistency reliability of EEG data using randomization and permutation techniques.

I have been a graduate research assistant at the University of Arizona and a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Illinois. I was also a Visiting Instructor at the University of Illinois Springfield (an as-needed yearly contract position as a full-time faculty member). I taught a number of classes, including Research Methods and Statistics. While doing so I gained experience in producing written and oral presentations of technical material, supervising and mentoring students, and developing assessment methods.

Most recently I have acted as a consultant on statistical analysis and research design on scholarly research projects. I have also been responsible for survey research, collaborating with members of the university community on the design, implementation, and analysis of surveys for scholarly research, personnel and program evaluation, and institutional planning.

Experience

University of Illinois Springfield
Visiting Instructor
- Developed lesson plans, lectures, and assessment methods
- Managed student performance and research participation data using Excel and Matlab
- Created classroom demonstrations and simulations using Powerpoint, Matlab, and Visual C++
- Taught lower and upper division undergraduate courses, including Research Methods, Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences, and Cognitive Psychology
- Mentored student research, including developing custom scoring software for an independent project
- Reviewed proposed research for compliance with department and IRB standards
- Maintained department website, research participation system, and Scantron system
- Advised approximately twenty students per semester
The University of Arizona
Graduate Research Assistant
- Developed QRSTool, a widely used GUI-based program for analysis of heart rate data (description published in Biological Psychology, 2007)
- Developed a novel method of assessing reliability of EEG frontal asymmetry data using statistical randomization techniques (published in Psychophysiology, 2009)
- Conducted behavioral and neurophysiological research with control, clinical, and non-human primate populations
- Created software and hardware solutions for physiological and behavioral data acquisition and stimulus presentation
- Prepared and presented lectures, technical reports, and experimental results, including writing manuscripts for publication
- Supervised and trained research assistants in collection, analysis, and organization of behavioral and physiological data
- Conducted computational neuroscience and artificial intelligence research using neural network and Bayesian methods
- Taught Biological Psychology, Abnormal Psychology, and Research Methods Laboratory
Western Illinois University
Statistician
-Consults with members of the university community on research design and data analysis for a wide variety of disciplines
-Designs, implements, and analyzes online surveys for scholarly research, personnel and program assessment, and institutional research
-Develops programming solutions for custom projects using multiple tools such as Matlab for statistical analysis and PHP / SQL / Javascript for web application
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Postdoctoral Fellow
- Researched the integration of EEG, fMRI, and behavioral data collected from mood and anxiety disorder populations
- Performed statistical analysis of physiological and behavioral data using SPSS and Matlab
- Collection and managed physiological and behavioral data using Excel and Matlab
- Developed custom software and hardware solutions for data acquisition, management, and analysis
- Assisted graduate students with programming, and statistical analysis
- Prepared and presented technical reports on advanced statistical and signal analysis methods

Education

University of Arizona
Master's Degree
Psychology
Emphasis in Cognitive Neuroscience.
University of Arizona
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Psychology
Dissertation titled "Psychometric properties of frontal EEG asymmetry scores", 2007, partially published in Psychophysiology as "A better estimate of the internal consistency reliability of frontal EEG alpha asymmetry", 2009. Emphasis in Cognitive Neuroscience, minor in Neuroscience.
Arizona State University
Bachelor's Degree
Psychology

Publications

A better estimate of the internal consistency reliability of frontal EEG alpha asymmetry
Psychophysiology
Frontal alpha asymmetry is typically computed using alpha power averaged across many overlapping epochs. Previous reports have estimated the internal consistency reliability of asymmetry by dividing resting EEG sessions into segments of equal duration (e.g. 1 min) and treating asymmetry scores for each segment as “items” to estimate internal consistency reliability using Cronbach's alpha. Cronbach's alpha partly depends on the number of items, such that this approach may underestimate reliability by using less than the number of distinct items available. Reliability estimates for resting EEG data in the present study (204 subjects, 8 sessions) were obtained using mean split-half correlations with epoch alpha power as treated as separate items. Estimates at all scalp sites and reference schemes approached 0.90 with as few as 100 epochs, suggesting the internal consistency of frontal asymmetry is greater than that previously reported.
A better estimate of the internal consistency reliability of frontal EEG alpha asymmetry
Psychophysiology
Frontal alpha asymmetry is typically computed using alpha power averaged across many overlapping epochs. Previous reports have estimated the internal consistency reliability of asymmetry by dividing resting EEG sessions into segments of equal duration (e.g. 1 min) and treating asymmetry scores for each segment as “items” to estimate internal consistency reliability using Cronbach's alpha. Cronbach's alpha partly depends on the number of items, such that this approach may underestimate reliability by using less than the number of distinct items available. Reliability estimates for resting EEG data in the present study (204 subjects, 8 sessions) were obtained using mean split-half correlations with epoch alpha power as treated as separate items. Estimates at all scalp sites and reference schemes approached 0.90 with as few as 100 epochs, suggesting the internal consistency of frontal asymmetry is greater than that previously reported.
The many metrics of cardiac chronotropy: A pragmatic primer and brief comparison of metrics
Biological Psychology
This paper focuses on pragmatic issues in obtaining measures of cardiac vagal control, and overviews a set of freely available software tools for obtaining several widely used metrics that putatively reflect sympathetic and/or parasympathetic contributions to cardiac chronotropy. After an overview of those metrics, and a discussion of potential confounds and extraneous influences, an empirical examination of the relationships amongst these metrics is provided. This study examined 10 metrics in 96 unselected college students under conditions of resting baseline and serial paced arithmetic. Intercorrelations between metrics were very high. Factor analyses were conducted on the metrics reflecting variability in cardiac rate, once at baseline and again during mental arithmetic. Factor structure was highly stable across tasks, and included a factor that had high loadings of all variables except Toichi’s ‘‘cardiac sympathetic index’’ (CSI), and a second factor that was defined predominantly by the CSI. Although generally highly correlated, the various metrics responded differently under challenge.