Bayesian Statistics for the Social Sciences

David Kaplan, PhD, is the Patricia Busk Professor of Quantitative Methods in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and holds affiliate appointments in the University of Wisconsin’s Department of Population Health Sciences, the Center for Demography and Ecology, and the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. Dr. Kaplan’s research focuses on the development of Bayesian statistical methods for education research. His work on these topics is directed toward applications to large-scale cross-sectional and longitudinal survey designs. He has been actively involved in the OECD Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), serving on its Technical Advisory Group from 2005 to 2009 and its Questionnaire Expert Group from 2004 to the present, and chairing the Questionnaire Expert Group for PISA 2015. He also serves on the Design and Analysis Committee and the Questionnaire Standing Committee for the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Dr. Kaplan is an elected member of the National Academy of Education and former chair of its Research Advisory Committee, president (2023–2024) of the Psychometric Society, and past president of the Society for Multivariate Experimental Psychology. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association (Division 5), a former visiting fellow at the Luxembourg Institute for Social and Economic Research, a former Jeanne Griffith Fellow at the National Center for Education Statistics, and a current fellow at the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories in Bamberg, Germany. He is a recipient of the Samuel J. Messick Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award from the American Psychological Association (Division 5), the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award, and the Hilldale Award for the Social Sciences from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Dr. Kaplan was the Johann von Spix International Visiting Professor at the Universität Bamberg and the Max Kade Visiting Professor at the Universität Heidelberg, both in Germany, and is currently International Guest Professor at the Universität Heidelberg.

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