You don’t come across statistics ninjas like David Rindskopf, a psychologist who teaches at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, every day. Whether he’s making advances in latent class analysis, multilevel modeling, or Bayesian statistics, Rindskopf has paved the way for education researchers to better understand the factors that affect students’ performance in school. And his work hasn’t gone unnoticed. A few years ago, Rindskopf was elected a fellow of the American Statistical Association, a designation rarely bestowed on scholars outside of a statistics department.
Here’s how Rindskopf describes his own work:
I don't know who invented the term "empirical epistemologist," but I do know that when I first heard the term I knew that it was a perfect phrase for describing what I do. Almost all people believe that they are epistemologists in a vague sense; after all, isn't everyone searching for the truth? But empirical epistemology implies the search for methods that will help researchers who design studies and collect data. For each supposed fact in social science, one could ask "How do we know that this is true?" My teaching and research is devoted to helping researchers answer this question.
Rindskopf also does a lot of statistical consulting, and has a great sense of humor - for example, check out Rindskopf’s Rules for Statistical Consulting.
PS - Who’s got a card game in mind to play with these new “cool people” trading cards?