R.J. Wirth is Chief Executive Officer, co-Founder, and a managing partner at VPG. Dr. Wirth received his PhD in quantitative psychology / psychometrics from the historic LL Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory at University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. Prior to leading VPG, Dr. Wirth held research positions at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at The University of North Carolina and in the School of Medicine at the University of Washington. For more than a decade, Dr. Wirth has collaborated widely within the pharmaceutical and medical device industries to develop and/or evaluate the measurement properties of clinical outcome assessments and was awarded (as co-PI) one of the first FDA-funded CDER pilot program grants: Standard core clinical outcome assessments and their related endpoints.
Dr. Wirth has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications on such topics as item factor analysis, structural equation modeling, validity, as well as various aspects of scale development appearing in outlets such as Headache, Health Psychology, Medical Care, Psychological Assessment, Psychological Methods and Quality of Life Research. He has participated as an invited expert speaker on multiple FDA panels and Industry advisory boards focused on PRO/COA development.