E-mail: ykisbu at ku.edu.tr
Dr. Kisbu is a faculty member and the director of Independent Evaluation Laboratory at Koç University, Department of Psychology. Her research focuses on
Experimental and quasi-experimental design for impact evaluation
Quantitative methods to increase intervention effectiveness
Large-scale data analysis and survey research to inform policy and interventions on risk and protective factors
Transportability and adaptability studies to bring effective programs to settings and countries different from where they originated
Systematic reviews and meta-analysis of intervention effectiveness
Child well-being in vulnerable populations (e.g., refugees, low-and-middle-income countries, girls).
She then completed her postdoctoral work under the supervision of Prof. Thomas D. Cook at Northwestern University, Institute for Policy Research where she worked on the development of novel quasi-experimental methods to evaluate programs and policies and used the new analysis methods to evaluate education and child development related intervention programs.
Dr. Kisbu is a recipient of 2017 Young Scientist Award given by Science Academy in Turkey. She has published several articles in peer reviewed scientific journals and presented at international conferences. She speaks Turkish, English, and French.
Yasemin Kisbu currently serves as the associate editor of Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science (AMPPS), the methodology journal of Association for Psychological Science (APS), published by Sage.
Koç University (2014 – present)
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
(Received “Associate Professor” title from the Turkish Council of Higher Education, 2018)
Northwestern University, Institute for Policy Research (2013 – 2014)
Post-doctoral Fellow in Quantitative Methodology and Evaluation
Supervisor: Prof. Thomas D. Cook (now at Mathematica Policy Research)
Topic: Causal inference methodology and quasi-experimental design.
Arizona State University, Research in Prevention Laboratory (2009 – 2013)
Graduate Research Associate in Quantitative Analysis, Evaluation Design and Methods.
Advisor: Prof. David MacKinnon (former President of American Psychological Association’s Division of Quantitative and Qualitative Methods)
(* sign denotes graduate student under supervision)
Kisbu-Sakarya, Y. (June, 2019). Fathering in Different Contexts. Symposium organized and chaired for the Annual Meeting of Society for Prevention Research, San Francisco CA.
Kisbu-Sakarya, Y. (June, 2015). Advancing Quasi-Experimental Methods: Comparative Regression Discontinuity Design. Paper symposium organized and chaired for the Annual Meeting of Society of Prevention Research, Washington DC.
Kisbu-Sakarya, Y. (June, 2015). Advances in Mediation Analysis: Improving Causal Interpretation and Accuracy of Estimates. Paper symposium organized and chaired for the Annual Meeting of Society of Prevention Research, Washington DC.
Kisbu-Sakarya, Y., Cook, T.D. & Yang, T. (June, 2015). Comparative Regression Discontinuity: Mitigating the Limitations of Regression Continuity Design. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of Society of Prevention Research, Washington DC.
Kisbu-Sakarya, Y., & MacKinnon, D., (June, 2015). Estimating causal mediated effects in the presence of post-treatment confounders. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of Society of Prevention Research, Washington DC.
Yang, T., Cook, T.D., & Kisbu-Sakarya, Y. (June, 2015). Reducing Bias and Increasing Precision by Adding Either a Pretest Measure of the Study Outcome or a Nonequivalent Comparison Group to the Basic Regression Discontinuity Design. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of Society of Prevention Research, Washington DC.
Olivera-Aguilar, M., Kisbu-Sakarya, Y., & MacKinnon, D., (June, 2015). Violations of invariance in a mediation model: Impact on relative bias, type I error rates, statistical power and coverage. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of Society of Prevention Research, Washington DC.
Kisbu-Sakarya, Y., O’Rourke, H., & MacKinnon, D., (June, 2012). Causal inference in Bayesian mediation analysis: Implications of prior information use. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of Society of Prevention Research, Washington DC.
Kisbu-Sakarya, Y., MacKinnon, D., & Tofighi, D. (June, 2011). Bayesian mediation analysis for studies with small samples. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of Society of Prevention Research, Denver, Co.
Cox, M. G., Kisbu-Sakarya, Y., & MacKinnon, D., (June, 2012). Distillation of the mediated effect: Estimating bias in latent variable mediation models. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of Society of Prevention Research, Washington DC.
MacKinnon, D.P., Cox, M.G., Miocevic, M., & Kisbu-Sakarya, Y. (March, 2012). Methods to assess confounder bias applied to an anabolic steroid prevention program. Paper presented at the Frontiers in the Analysis of Causal Mechanisms Conference, Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Sciences, Cambridge, MA.
MacKinnon, D.P., Kisbu-Sakarya, Y., & Lockhart, G. (October, 2011). Moments of the Distribution of the Product of Two Standard Normal Variates. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology, OK.
Kisbu-Sakarya, Y., MacKinnon, D., & Elliot, D. (2010, June). Cross-Sectional versus Longitudinal Analyses: Discrepant Findings from Prevention Research Data. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of Society of Prevention Research, Denver, Co.
Burrell, G.L., MacKinnon, D., & Kisbu, Y. (2010, June). Test of an Instrumental Variable Estimation of the Mediated Effect. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of Society of Prevention Research, Denver, Co.
Elliot, D.L., MacKinnon, D.P., Mabry, L., Kisbu-Sakarya, Y., Kuehl, K., & Favorite, K. (April, 2012). Worksite wellness program implementation: A model of translational effectiveness. Presented at the National American College Occupational and Environmental Medicine meeting, Los Angeles, CA.
Baraldi, A.N., MacKinnon, D.P., Kisbu-Sakarya, Y., Grenard, J.L., Pike, J., Stacy, A., & Reynolds, K. (June, 2012). Methodological challenges in EMA data as applied to an obesity study. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of Society of Prevention Research, Washington DC.
Kisbu-Sakarya, Y., Pirlott, A., DeFrancesco, C., Eash, M., MacKinnon, D., Elliott D.L. (June, 2011). Mediation mechanisms of motivational interviewing in occupational health promotion. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of American College of Sports Medicine, Denver, Co.