Augustin Kelava

Augustin Kelava is a Professor at the Department of Quantitative Methods, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen. He has held this position since 2018 and leads the Methods Center as Managing Director. Previously, he was Professor at the Hector Institute for Empirical Educational Research (2013-2018) and Junior Professor at Technical University of Darmstadt (2011-2013).

• PhD in Psychology (Goethe University Frankfurt, 2009)
• Diploma in Psychology (Goethe University Frankfurt, 2004)

Kelava specializes in latent variable modeling, machine learning in social sciences, and educational research. His work spans dynamic latent class models, Bayesian regularization techniques, and prediction of human behavior using intensive longitudinal data. He contributes to psychometric theory (e.g., item response theory extensions) and applies these methods to diverse fields including sports science and emotion regulation.

• Editor of "Testtheorie und Fragebogenkonstruktion" (3rd ed., Springer, 2020)
• Key researcher in the Cluster of Excellence "Machine Learning in Science"
• Active in methodological conferences (FGME 2017, SEM 2019)
• Review activities for 20+ journals and foundations including Psychometrika, DFG, and SNSF

His recent publications focus on integrating machine learning with psychometrics, addressing identifiability in complex models, and evaluating personality assessment validity for large language models. He collaborates with researchers across psychology, education, and computational fields.