Don van Ravenzwaaij appointed adjunct professor Bayesian Statistics

Starting on 1 April Don van Ravenzwaaij has been appointed as adjunct professor Bayesian Statistics, aimed at developing and refining methods for evaluating statistical evidence and their societal applications.

Within the social and medical sciences methods for quantifying evidence for a null result have gained importance. The same goes for continuous testing, while data is being collected. Contrary to more traditional methods Bayesian statistics suit this goal ideally.

In this chair these techniques will continue to be developed. Ultimately, the goal is to apply the methods to societal issues, like a previous study on why it is that some non-working drugs are yet introduced to the market.

Don van Ravenzwaaij obtained his cum laude Phd in 2012 at the University of Amsterdam. His thesis was titled “The Hare or the Tortoise? Modeling Optimal Speed-Accuracy Tradeoff Settings". Afterwards he worked for a number of years at both the University of New South Wales and the University of Newcastle. Since 2015 he has been employed at the unit of Psychometrics and Statistics of Psychology at the faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences.