Kevin González Ortega
I am a data scientist and Systems and Computing Engineer working on psychometrics, educational measurement, and machine learning and AI evaluation. I am a Fulbright Scholar in the M.S.Ed. program in Qualitative and Quantitative Research Methodology at Indiana University Bloomington.
For ten years I have built data and learning systems at Fundación Ayudinga, a nonprofit e-learning foundation in Panama, where I am Director of Technology and Educational Research. I direct an R&D portfolio of 10+ projects in machine learning, knowledge management and gamification for education, and I designed the foundation’s data governance strategy and cloud infrastructure. My goal is to build and evaluate models and assessments that are valid, reliable and fair.
I have also taught seven undergraduate courses in mathematics and computer science as an Adjunct Professor at Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico, Panama Campus, from Precalculus and Calculus I to Discrete Computer Structures and Artificial Intelligence for Video Games. See my teaching →
I am a member of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME), IEEE and ACM.
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Research interests
- Data Science: statistical and machine learning modeling, multivariate statistics, missing data, data governance, and learning analytics in education
- Psychometrics: educational and psychological measurement, assessment design, and evidence for reliability, validity and fairness
- AI Evaluation: applying measurement principles to evaluate machine learning models and large language models (LLMs) so their results are valid, reliable and fair
Selected publications
Democratizing Data Analytics in Education: A Governance Strategy for Non-Profit Educational Organizations — 2025 IEEE 43rd Central America and Panama Convention (CONCAPAN XLIII), 2025 · Link
Design and Implementation of Knowledge Graphs for Building Personalized Learning Paths at Fundación Ayudinga — Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá, 2023 · In Spanish
Structuring a Geospatial Information System for the Analysis of Food Security, Nutritional Intervention and Human Health Data in Panama — XIX Congreso Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología – APANAC 2023, 2023 · In Spanish · Link
Featured projects
PRISM: Panama Research and Integrated Sustainability Model — Interactive geospatial dashboard of food security and child nutrition in Panama: ~100 province-level indicators from MINSA’s national height censuses (2007, 2013) extracted from PDF reports and mapped with R, Quarto and Leaflet. Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá · APANAC 2023.
Data Governance and Learning Platform at Fundación Ayudinga — A cloud-based Data Lakehouse (Dremio) and a formal data governance program for a nonprofit e-learning platform in Panama, which raised the organization’s TDWI data-literacy maturity from Basic to Literate (IEEE CONCAPAN 2025). Also knowledge graphs for personalized learning paths and an R&D portfolio of 10+ projects.
Cambio en 10 — A project to reduce school dropout by developing life skills, with emotional intelligence as a cross-cutting part of comprehensive education. International Laboratory for Citizen Advocacy, 2018.
News
- Fall 2026: Taking Educational Assessment and Psychological Measurement, Machine Learning Methods for Education and Social Science, and Applied Missing Data Analysis at IU Bloomington.
- Nov 2025: Paper on data governance for non-profit educational organizations published in the proceedings of IEEE CONCAPAN XLIII.
- Oct 2025: Joined IEEE as a member.
- Aug 2025: Started the M.S.Ed. at Indiana University Bloomington as a Fulbright Scholar.
- Jan 2025: Began the Fulbright Pre-Academic English Program at the University of North Texas.