PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Achim Zeileis

Achim Zeileis is a professor of statistics whose research develops tree-based machine-learning methods for regression and classification. He studied statistics in Dortmund, worked in Vienna, and joined Universität Innsbruck as a professor in 2010. With collaborators, he coauthored conditional-inference and model-based recursive-partitioning methods, then published the partykit toolkit for tree models. In June 2026, he evaluated a FIFA World Cup forecast based on ensemble machine learning; his research also includes distributional random forests, personalized treatment effects, and boosting.

Works
510
Citations
43,023
h-index
70

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 18 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2000–2003

    Statistics study in Dortmund

    At Universität Dortmund, he studies statistics and earns his diploma in 2000. He then works in Kurt Hornik's group at Technische Universität Wien and completes a statistics doctorate at Dortmund in late 2003.

  2. 2006

    Conditional inference trees

    In 2006, he coauthors “Unbiased Recursive Partitioning: A Conditional Inference Framework” with Torsten Hothorn and Kurt Hornik. The method embeds tree-structured regression models in conditional-inference procedures.

  3. By 2008

    An academic post in Vienna

    After completing his doctorate in 2003, he becomes a university assistant in statistics and mathematics at Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien. He completes his habilitation in statistics and econometrics in 2008.

  4. 2008

    Model-based recursive partitioning

    In 2008, he, Torsten Hothorn, and Kurt Hornik publish the MOB paper on model-based recursive partitioning. The method fits a model tree, tests its parameters for instability, and splits where the tests find evidence.

  5. 2015

    The partykit toolkit

    With Torsten Hothorn, he publishes partykit, an R toolkit for learning, representing, summarizing, and visualizing tree-structured regression and classification models.

  6. June 2026

    Reviewing World Cup forecasts

    In June 2026, he evaluates the group-stage results against his FIFA World Cup forecast, which uses an ensemble machine-learning algorithm.

  7. Since 2010

    Professor at Innsbruck

    He is a professor of statistics at Universität Innsbruck, a post he has held since March 2010; the university lists him among its staff in 2026. His current machine-learning research includes tree-based modeling, distributional random forests, personalized treatment effects, and boosting.

A language model matched the links in this timeline to people, organizations and papers (provisional, model-judged).

Career

  1. Since 2010Universität InnsbruckProfessor of Statistics
  2. 2002–2010Vienna University of Economics and BusinessUniversity Assistant in Statistics and Mathematics
  3. 2000–2003TU Wien

Education

  1. 2003TU Dortmund UniversityDoctorate in Statistics
  2. 2000TU Dortmund UniversityDiploma in Statistics

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Most-cited works

  1. Unbiased Recursive Partitioning: A Conditional Inference Framework2006 · Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics · 4,016 citations
  2. Bias in random forest variable importance measures: Illustrations, sources and a solution2007 · BMC Bioinformatics · 3,694 citations
  3. Conditional variable importance for random forests2008 · BMC Bioinformatics · 3,267 citations
  4. Beta Regression in R2010 · Journal of Statistical Software · 2,392 citations
  5. Regression Models for Count Data in R2008 · Journal of Statistical Software · 2,348 citations

From OpenAlex, as of 18 October 2026.

  1. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers rose from 2% to 33%Includes Universität Innsbruck. We estimate where leading AI researchers worked when their most-cited papers appeared. The company share rose from 2% in 1975–1979 to 33% in 2020–2024.
  2. Stanford University trained or employed 27 of the 113 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Universität Innsbruck. Stanford University trained or employed 27 of the 113 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and employment links for major-prize and best-paper winners.
  3. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes TU Wien. Our estimates of where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led, from education records in cited biographies.
  4. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI from 1962 to 2025, with a year-by-year chart.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Achim Zeileis yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Achim Zeileis – Universität Innsbruck uibk.ac.at. Checked 18 October 2026.
  2. CRAN: Package party stat.math.ethz.ch. Checked 18 October 2026.
  3. Refereed publications zeileis.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  4. R: Model-based Recursive Partitioning search.r-project.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  5. partykit: A Modular Toolkit for Recursive Partytioning in R jmlr.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  6. Machine learning meets reality: Forecast evaluation for the 2026 FIFA World Cup zeileis.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  7. Achim Zeileis – Universität Innsbruck uibk.ac.at. Checked 18 October 2026.
  8. Research overview zeileis.org. Checked 18 October 2026.