Keith Widaman received his degree in Developmental Psychology from Ohio State University in 1982. His research focuses on the effects of poverty on  families, children, and parenting, and on ethnicity and the impacts of economic hardship on families.

Widaman conducts research on the development of human mental abilities and on statistical methods used in the social sciences. In research on mental abilities, he studied the cognitive processes underlying numerical facility, especially as these processes change in nature and in speed of execution from childhood through early adulthood. He also studies the structure and development of adaptive behaviors of persons with mental retardation, particularly how parenting behaviors foster growth of adaptive behaviors. His quantitative work encompasses contributions to factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and item response theory, and he is currently working on reformulating the role of significance testing in regression analysis.

Widaman is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, won the Cattell Award from the Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology, and is on the editorial boards of seven journals, including Psychological Methods, Multivariate Behavioral Research, and Intelligence.