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Wenjing Huang

wenjing huang
Associate Behavioral and Social Scientist
Santa Monica Office

Education

Ph.D. in quantitative psychology, University of California, Los Angeles; M.A. in quantitative psychology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; B.A. in education, Soochow University, Suzhou, China

Overview

Wenjing Huang is an associate behavioral and social scientist at the RAND Corporation. Her quantitative methodological research has focused on Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), Item Response Theory (IRT) and Latent Growth Modeling. Huang has collaborated extensively with researchers at RAND in the areas of educational assessment, mental health and substance use. A major focus of her research is using modern measurement methods to develop item banks for psychological or educational assessments. She participated in building the PROMIS Smoking Initiative, a NIDA-funded for assessing smoking behaviors and biopsychosocial correlates of smoking. Huang is involved in a couple of international projects, e.g. an integrated depression care and microfinance program for women in Vietnam and a study of health risk behaviors among Palestinian youth. She developed novel approaches that combine methods used in Psychometrics (SEM) and econometrics (Partial Least Squares). Huang interned at the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, for building the Global Information System on Alcohol and Health. Huang received her Ph.D. from the quantitative psychology program at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Research Focus

Selected Publications

Pedersen, E. R., Huang, W., Dvorak, R. D., Prince, M., Hummer, J. F., & Marijuana Outcomes Study Team, "The Protective Behavioral Strategies for Marijuana Scale: Further examination using Item Response Theory," Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 2016 (forthcoming)

Huang, W., Stucky, B.D., Edelen, M.O., Tucker, J. S., Shadel, W.G., Hansen, M., & Cai, L., "Calibration of the Spanish PROMIS® smoking item banks," Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 18(7):1635-1641, 2016

Stucky, B.D., Huang, W., & Edelen, M.O., "The psychometric performance of the PROMIS Smoking Assessment Toolkit: Comparisons of real-data CATs, short forms, and mode of administration.," Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 18(3):361-365, 2016

Bentler, P., & Huang, W., "On components, latent variables, PLS and simple methods: reactions to Ridgon's rethinking of PLS.," Long Range Planning, 47(3):138-145, 2014

Hussong, A. M., Huang, W., Serrano, D., Curran, P. J., & Chassin, L., "Testing whether and when parent alcoholism uniquely affects various forms of adolescent substance use.," Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 40(8):1265–1276, 2012

Hussong, A. M., Huang, W., Curran, P. J., Chassin, L., & Zucker, R. A., "Parent alcoholism impacts the severity and timing of children's externalizing symptoms.," Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 38:367–380, 2010

Hussong, A. M., Bauer, D. J., Huang, W., Chassin, L., Sher, K. J., & Zucker, R. A., "Characterizing the life stressors of children of alcoholic parents.," Journal of Family Psychology, 22:819–832, 2008

Curran, P. J., Hussong, A. M., Cai, L., Huang, W., Chassin, L., Sher, K. J., & Zucker, R. A., "Pooling data from multiple prospective studies: The role of item response theory in integrative analysis.," Developmental Psychology, 44:365–380, 2008

Publications