National Academies Press: OpenBook

Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault (2014)

Chapter: Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff

« Previous: Appendix E: Statistical Rationale Behind Some Initial Findings on the Relative Statistical Plausibility of a Multiple-Frame Approach to Estimating the Victimization Rate of Rape and Sexual Assault
Suggested Citation:"Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2014. Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18605.
×

Appendix F


Biographical Sketches of
Panel Members and Staff

Candace Kruttschnitt (Cochair) is a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto. Previously, she was chair of the department of sociology at the University of Minnesota. She has worked and published extensively on the subjects of female offending and victimization. Her current research focuses on the effects of confinement on offenders in different political and cultural contexts (the United States, Britain, and the Netherlands). She was appointed a visiting professor by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science in 2010, and was awarded the Distinguished Scholar Award in 2011 by the American Society of Criminology’s Division on Women and Crime. She is the elected president (for 2015) of the American Society of Criminology. She has a B.A. in criminology from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.A., a M.Phil., and a Ph.D. in sociology from Yale University.

William D. Kalsbeek (Cochair) is a professor in the Department of Biostatistics and past director of the Survey Research Unit at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests include the practice, teaching, and study of health survey research methods, with particular emphasis on the joint roles of costs and statistical efficacy in survey design, sampling of elusive populations, and survey nonresponse.  He has served as sampling statistician or adviser on many of the major national surveys in the United States and has designed samples for several international health surveys, including ones in Egypt, Honduras, Indonesia, Jordan, Russia, and Somalia. He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association. He has a

Suggested Citation:"Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2014. Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18605.
×

B.A. in mathematics from Northwestern College and a M.P.H. and a Ph.D. in biostatistics from the University of Michigan.

Paul P. Biemer is a distinguished fellow in statistics at RTI International and associate director for survey research and director of the certificate program in survey methodology at the Odum Institute for Research in Social Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Previously at RTI, he served as director of the survey methods program and director of the Center for Survey Methods and Research. His work in survey methodology and statistics includes developing methodologies for using computer audio-recorded interviewing, using latent class analysis as a survey error evaluation tool, and applying continuous quality improvement to the coding of industry and occupation question responses. He has a B.S. in mathematics, an M.S. in statistics, and a Ph.D. in statistics from Texas A&M University.

John Boyle is senior vice president and survey research line of business lead for ICF International. Previously, he was executive vice president of Abt SRBI, a senior partner of SRBI, and senior vice president of Louis Harris and Associates. His study areas include epidemiology, health care utilization and outcomes, violence and post-traumatic stress disorder, service quality assessment, program evaluation, and policy analysis. He has worked extensively in the design, execution, and analysis of surveys related to sexual assault, victimization and abuse, including both military and national civilian surveys. He directed the National Violence Against Women Survey and the National College Women Sexual Victimization Survey, among others. He has a Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Bonnie S. Fisher is a professor in the school of criminal justice at the University of Cincinnati. Previously, she was on the faculty of the Department of City and Regional Planning at Ohio State University, a visiting scholar in the Division of Prevention and Community Research at Yale University School of Medicine, and a visiting professor in the Department of Sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She was the principal investigator for major research projects on the victimization of college students, the sexual victimization of college women, violence against college women, and campus-level responses to a report of sexual assault. Her research interests include sexual violence against women, repeat victimization, fear of crime, the measurement of victimization, injury detection of rape victims, and the court’s use of digital images in the prosecution of rape cases. She has a Ph.D. in political science from Northwestern University.

Karen Heimer is professor of sociology and women’s studies at the University of Iowa. She is also affiliated with the Public Policy Center at the

Suggested Citation:"Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2014. Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18605.
×

University of Iowa, where she served as Director of Social Science Research in the past. Her recent work includes studies of violence against women and minorities over time, women’s offending and victimization across cities and metropolitan statistical areas over time, race and gender differences in imprisonment over time, and juvenile delinquency. Heimer is Vice President of the American Society of Criminology in 2014 and has served as an executive council member of the American Society of Criminology in the past. She also served a term as Chair of the Crime, Law and Deviance Section of the American Sociological Association. She received her M.A. in psychology and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Wisconsin—Madison.

Carol C. House (Study Director) is a senior program officer for the Committee on National Statistics. She previously served as study director for the project that resulted in Measuring What We Spend: Toward a New Consumer Expenditure Survey, and was a rapporteur for Research Opportunities Concerning the Causes and Consequences of Child Food Insecurity and Hunger: A Workshop Summary. Prior to her work the National Research Council, she held several positions at the National Agricultural Statistics Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, including deputy administrator for programs and products, associate administrator, director of research and development, and director of survey management. She also served as chair of the Agricultural Statistics Board. She has provided statistical consulting on sample surveys in China, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Poland. She is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and an elected member of the International Statistical Institute. Her graduate training was in mathematics at the University of Maryland.

Linda Ledray is director of the SANE-SART Resource Service and founder of the Minneapolis-based Sexual Assault Resource Service (SARS), which she directed for more than 30 years. SARS provides forensic-medical services to sexual assault survivors at seven hospital sites, and was one of the first Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) programs in the country. She has helped develop and implement SANE programs across the United States and in numerous other countries. She was a founding member of the certification board of the International Association of Forensic Nurses, and serves on the editorial board of its journal. Her articles have appeared in both scholarly and popular journals, and she has appeared on CNN, Arthur Frommer’s Almanac, and CBS This Morning. She has a B.S. in nursing and an M.A. in community and mental health nursing, both from the University of Washington, and an M.A. in psychology and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and personality research from the University of Minnesota.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2014. Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18605.
×

Colin Loftin is a professor in the School of Criminal Justice at the University and codirector of the Violence Research Group, a research collaboration with colleagues at the University at Albany and the University of Maryland. The Violence Research Group conducts research on the causes and consequences of interpersonal violence In four broad areas: understanding violence as a social process extending beyond individual action; improving the quality of data on the incidence and nature of crime; the design and evaluation of violence prevention policies; and the investigation of population risk factors for violence. He has a B.A. (with honors), an M.A., and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Ruth D. Peterson is emerita professor of sociology, former distinguished professor of social and behavioral science, and former director of the Criminal Justice Research Center, and she coordinates the Racial Democracy, Crime and Justice Network, all at Ohio State University. Her research focuses on community conditions and crime, racial and ethnic inequality in patterns of crime, and the consequences of criminal justice policies for racially and ethnically distinct communities. Her current work focuses on attempts to explain how and why patterns of neighborhood crime vary across communities of different colors and explores how residential and nonresidential neighborhoods that individuals traverse during the course of their daily activities differentially influence their participation in crime, drug use, and other problem behaviors. She has a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Nora Cate Schaeffer is Sewell Bascom professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin—Madison, where she also serves as faculty director of the university’s Survey Center, teaches courses in survey research methods, and conducts research on questionnaire design and interaction during survey interviews. She currently serves as member of the Advisory Board of the Public Opinion Quarterly of the American Association for Public Opinion Research and of the Board of Overseers of the General Social Survey. She has also served on advisory and technical committees for the Survey of Income and Program Participation, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, the National Science Foundation, and the governing council of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. She is a fellow of the American Statistical Association. She has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Tom W. Smith is a survey methodologist and director of the General Social Survey at NORC at the University of Chicago. He is frequently consulted and has spoken publicly on a wide range of topics, including American sexual behavior, intergroup relations, confidence in institutions, happiness,

Suggested Citation:"Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2014. Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18605.
×

religion, guns, and voter behavior He has been awarded the Worcester Prize of the International Journal of Public Opinion Research; the Innovators Award and the Award for Exceptionally Distinguished Achievement of the American Association for Public Opinion Research; and the award for distinguished contributions to sociology of the Eastern Sociological Society. He has a B.A. in history and political science and an M.A. in history from Pennsylvania State University and a Ph.D. in American history from the University of Chicago.

Bruce D. Spencer is a professor and former department chair of statistics and a faculty fellow of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. His interests span the disciplines of statistics and public policy with a special focus on the design and evaluation of large-scale statistical data programs. He is currently studying the costs and benefits of alternative designs for the 2020 census, how to estimate the accuracy of verdicts in criminal cases when the truth is unknown, and how to draw inferences about networks from samples. Previously, he directed the Methodology Research Center of NORC at the University of Chicago. He received the Palmer O. Johnson Memorial Award from the American Educational Research Association and is an elected fellow of the American Statistical Association. He has a Ph.D. from Yale University.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2014. Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18605.
×

This page intentionally left blank.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2014. Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18605.
×
Page 257
Suggested Citation:"Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2014. Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18605.
×
Page 258
Suggested Citation:"Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2014. Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18605.
×
Page 259
Suggested Citation:"Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2014. Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18605.
×
Page 260
Suggested Citation:"Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2014. Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18605.
×
Page 261
Suggested Citation:"Appendix F: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2014. Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18605.
×
Page 262
Next: Committee on National Statistics »
Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault Get This Book
×
Buy Paperback | $54.00 Buy Ebook | $43.99
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

The Bureau of Justice Statistics' (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) measures the rates at which Americans are victims of crimes, including rape and sexual assault, but there is concern that rape and sexual assault are undercounted on this survey. BJS asked the National Research Council to investigate this issue and recommend best practices for measuring rape and sexual assault on their household surveys. Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault concludes that it is likely that the NCVS is undercounting rape and sexual assault. The most accurate counts of rape and sexual assault cannot be achieved without measuring them separately from other victimizations, the report says. It recommends that BJS develop a separate survey for measuring rape and sexual assault. The new survey should more precisely define ambiguous words such as "rape," give more privacy to respondents, and take other steps that would improve the accuracy of responses. Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault takes a fresh look at the problem of measuring incidents of rape and sexual assault from the criminal justice perspective. This report examines issues such as the legal definitions in use by the states for these crimes, best methods for representing the definitions in survey instruments so that their meaning is clear to respondents, and best methods for obtaining as complete reporting as possible of these crimes in surveys, including methods whereby respondents may report anonymously.

Rape and sexual assault are among the most injurious crimes a person can inflict on another. The effects are devastating, extending beyond the initial victimization to consequences such as unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, sleep and eating disorders, and other emotional and physical problems. Understanding the frequency and context under which rape and sexual assault are committed is vital in directing resources for law enforcement and support for victims. These data can influence public health and mental health policies and help identify interventions that will reduce the risk of future attacks. Sadly, accurate information about the extent of sexual assault and rape is difficult to obtain because most of these crimes go unreported to police. Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault focuses on methodology and vehicles used to measure rape and sexual assaults, reviews potential sources of error within the NCVS survey, and assesses the training and monitoring of interviewers in an effort to improve reporting of these crimes.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    Switch between the Original Pages, where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  9. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!