Alexander Crenshaw, Ph.D.
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychological Science and the Director of the Couples and Methodology (CAM) Lab. My research straddles both substantive and methodological domains, both ultimately aimed at establishing more effective psychological interventions for the public. My substantive research focuses on intimate relationship function, dysfunction, and treatment, with a particular interest in empathic functioning and advancing treatments for couples. My methodological research focuses primarily on advancing quantitative methods and study design for clinical trials in psychology. Such work includes improving standardized metrics for evaluating change in trials, such as the reliable change index and the standardized mean difference (e.g., Cohen's d), and developing methods for extracting insights from trials in cases when significant problems in the operation of the trial render traditional analyses flawed. A secondary focus of my methodological research aims to improve basic science methodologies for studying intimate relationships
My research emphasizes open science, and I routinely shares study materials, code, and data (when ethically permissible) to promote transparency and facilitate reproducibility of my work. My work has been published in leading journals including the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Psychological Assessment, Psychiatry Research, Journal of Traumatic Stress, and the Journal of Family Psychology. I have also served as the statistician on numerous federally-funded clinical trials for psychological interventions and have received funding from multiple sources, including a recently awarded $952,425 CAD project grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
