Georg Rasch

Who was Georg Rasch?

Georg Rasch was a Danish mathematician, statistician, and psychometrician, most famous for the development of a class of measurement models known as Rasch models. He studied with R.A. Fisher and also briefly with Ragnar Frisch, and was elected a member of the International Statistical Institute in 1948.

In 1919, Rasch began studying mathematics at the University of Copenhagen. He completed a masters degree in 1925 and received a doctorate in science with thesis director Niels Erik Nørlund in 1930. Rasch married in 1928. Unable to find work as a mathematician in the 1930s, he turned to work as a statistical consultant. In this capacity he worked on a range of problems, including problems of biological growth.