David Thissen

David Thissen
Born	c. 1950 (age 66–67) Fort Dodge, Iowa
Residence	United States
Nationality	American
Fields	Psychometrics
Institutions	University of Kansas University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Alma mater	Saint Louis University University of Chicago
Doctoral advisor	R. Darrell Bock
Doctoral students	Kimberly Swygert Bryce Reeve Cheryl Hill Michelle Langer Michael Edwards Li Cai Brian Stucky Yang Liu Brooke Magnus
Known for	Item response theory Unit-weighted regression Test Scoring
Influences	Howard Wainer
Notable awards	American Statistical Association Fellow (2006) AERA Inaugural Fellow (2008) NCME Career Contribution Award (2015)

David Michael Thissen (born c. 1950) is a professor of quantitative psychology at the University of North Carolina and former President of the Psychometric Society. He is a fellow at the American Statistical Association and the American Psychological Society. He is known for his contributions to item response theory.

The eldest of five children, Thissen graduated from St. Edmond High School in Fort Dodge, Iowa and was a national semifinalist in the 1967 Westinghouse Science Talent Search. He earned a bachelor's degree from Saint Louis University and a PhD in quantitative psychology from the University of Chicago, where he was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

Upon receiving his PhD in 1976, Thissen joined the psychology faculty at the University of Kansas and was appointed an associate professor (with tenure) five years later. He moved to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1990 as a full professor of psychology and served as the chair of the L. L. Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory until 2002. He continues to serve UNC as a full professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience.

He is the author of hundreds of publications on testing and measurement, patient-reported health outcomes (PROs), human development, and statistical graphics. He published Test Scoring with Howard Wainer in 2001.

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