Dr Esther Beierl

Esther was a consulting psychometrician and data scientist at the Psychometrics Centre, University of Cambridge in 2024. She combines a strong methodological expertise with keen interest in its application to solve multidisciplinary, real-world problems in an original and cutting-edge way.

Esther completed her PhD at Ludwig-Maximilian University Munich, Germany, in 2016, holding a PhD scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation (‘Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes’), which is Germany’s largest and most prestigious funding body for students. Her PhD research focused on the robustness of fit indices to detect factorial misspecifications in structural equation models, and investigated the effects on factor scores, that have been calculated from those misspecified models.

Esther was an academic visitor at the Psychometrics Centre in 2016, working on Machine Learning approaches for the prediction of self-reported health conditions based on participants’ Facebook Likes, and the ‘Predictive World’ project in collaboration with Ubisoft and Sid Lee.

Esther was a postdoctoral research associate and trial statistician at the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, from 2017-2022. Her research focused on psychological factors that contribute to the prediction of onset and maintenance of posttraumatic stress disorder and anxiety disorders using statistical approaches, such as Structural Equation Modelling, Machine Learning, and Hierarchical Linear Modelling. In her role as a trial statistician, she worked on several large randomised controlled trials using CBT approaches to prevent and treat posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorders, and depression.

Esther is also a qualified yoga teacher, personal trainer, and a passionate advocate for mental health and ambassador for the international charity MQ, which funds innovative mental health research.