– B –

Biographical Sketches of Planning Committee Members and Presenters

MEMBERS OF THE PLANNING COMMITTEE

WARREN BROWN (chair) is senior research associate in the Cornell Institute for Social and Economic Research at Cornell University. He manages Cornell’s secure data services for restricted access data sets, including Cornell’s Census Research Data Center. Previously, he directed the applied demography program at the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia, serving as the state demographer. He has served on the steering committee of the National State Data Center Network and as president of the Association of Public Data Users, a national association conducting educational programs for users of government statistics. In 2009, he authored a handbook in the Census Bureau’s “Compass” series on researchers’ use of the American Community Survey (ACS). He has a B.A. degree in religious studies from the University of Virginia, an M.A. degree in sociology from the New School for Social Research, and a Ph.D. degree in development sociology from Cornell University.

SUSAN BROWER is director of the Minnesota State Demographic Center, serving as the official state demographer since February 2012. As state demographer, she researches demographic trends related to the state’s economy/workforce and health, with particular emphasis on demographic shifts related to immigration and to changes in the state’s rural population. She joined the

state demographic center after working as a researcher on the Minnesota Compass project at Wilder Research in St. Paul, and previously worked at the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan. She holds a master’s degree in public policy from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan.

SHAWN BUCHOLTZ is director of the Housing and Demographic Analysis Division at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R). At HUD PD&R since October 2010, he has led efforts to redesign the American Housing Survey (AHS), conducted by the Census Bureau with sponsorship from HUD, and is also responsible for the production of other housing market surveys such as the Rental Housing Finance Survey. He previously served as branch chief for planning and analysis at the Farm Service Agency and as an economist and geographic information systems analyst at the Economic Research Service, both in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He holds a B.S. in public resource management from Michigan State University, an M.S. in agricultural and resource economics from the University of Maryland, and a Ph.D. in computational social science from George Mason University.

MICHAEL DAVERN is senior vice president and director of the Public Health Research Department at NORC at the University of Chicago. At NORC at the University of Chicago, his work focuses on survey research, public health data, linking surveys with administrative data, and Census Bureau data, as well as the use of these data for policy research simulation and evaluation. Previously, at the University of Minnesota, he was an assistant professor of health policy and management and research director of the State Health Access Data Assistance Center and codirector of the State Research Data Center. He also previously served as a statistician for the Labor Force and Transfer Programs Statistics Branch of the U.S. Census Bureau. A major focus of his work has involved applying state-level data to health policy issues and helping states monitor trends in health insurance coverage rates. He has a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Notre Dame.

DONALD DILLMAN is Regents professor in the Department of Sociology at Washington State University and is deputy director for research and development in the university’s Social and Economic Sciences Research Center. From 1991–1995, he served as the senior survey methodologist in the U.S. Census Bureau’s Office of the Director, and received the Roger Herriot Award for Innovation in Federal Statistics in 2000 for his work at the Census Bureau. He is past president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research and the Rural Sociological Society. He is a current member of the Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and chaired its

Panel on Redesigning the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Surveys. He has a B.A. in agronomy, an M.S. in rural sociology, and a Ph.D. in sociology, all from Iowa State University.

BETH JAROSZ is senior research associate in U.S. Programs at the Population Reference Bureau (PRB). She joined PRB in 2013 after more than a decade of experience in demographic estimation, forecasting, and analysis as senior demographer at the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), the regional planning agency for the San Diego region. At SANDAG, she worked on a variety of topics ranging from transportation planning to public health. She has also served as an instructor of sociology at Pensacola State College. She holds a B.S. in applied economics from the University of Rhode Island and an M.A. in demographic and social analysis from the University of California, Irvine.

PATRICE MATHIEU is a senior methodologist in the Social Survey Methods Division at Statistics Canada. He joined Statistics Canada in 1999, and since that time has worked on numerous projects related to social and business surveys. He started working for the Canadian Census of population in 2010; his team is responsible for the methodology of census collection. He has participated in numerous international projects, including the development of the first joint Canada/United States Survey of Health (in partnership with the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics) and the international peer review committee for the 2016 Australian census. He participated in the July 31–August 1, 2014, International Conference on Census Methods convened by the Committee on National Statistics’ Panel to Review the 2010 Census. He has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and a master’s degree in statistics, both from the University of Montréal.

SESSION A

VICTORIA VELKOFF is head of the American Community Survey (ACS) Office at the U.S. Census Bureau. As a senior executive with over 25 years of service at the Census Bureau, she has led several divisions at the core of the Bureau’s mission, including direction of research on race and Hispanic origin data, the production of population estimates and projections, and international assistance work. She has also directed the agency’s research on homeownership rates, income, poverty, and health insurance and worked on developing new measures for same-sex relationships. Her research has focused broadly on the impact of aging populations worldwide, gender issues, and the collection, analysis, and dissemination of demographic data. She has received several U.S. Department of Commerce Bronze Medal Awards for her work. She has a B.A. in economics and an M.A. in Russian

and East European studies, both from the University of Michigan, and a Ph.D. in sociology and demography from Princeton University.

SESSION B

JENNIFER ORTMAN has served as assistant division chief for survey methods and measures in the ACS Office at the U.S. Census Bureau since December 2016. She joined the Census Bureau staff in 2009 as a demographer, leading the production of the national population projections and collaborating on efforts to improve the population estimates. She became assistant division chief for social characteristics in the Social, Economic, and Housing Statistics Division in 2015. She has co-authored reports on topics such as the older population and the Baby Boom cohort, and has appeared on C-SPAN Washington Journal’s “America by the Numbers” segments to discuss her work. She has received several U.S. Department of Commerce Bronze Medal awards for her work. She has a bachelor’s degree in anthropology, a master’s degree in sociology, and a Ph.D. in sociology, all from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.

NIKOLAS PHARRIS-CIUREJ is a senior researcher and acting chief of the Survey and Economic Research Branch in the Center for Administrative Records Research and Applications (CARRA) at the U.S. Census Bureau. In this capacity, he leads CARRA’s research on the integration of administrative records into Census Bureau survey data collections. He previously worked at the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP), serving as principal statistician on the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health Study and leading a number of research projects, including one that harmonized tobacco usage and demographic and health measures in nationally representative survey datasets. He holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Seattle University and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Washington.

LINDA JACOBSEN is vice president of U.S. programs at the Population Reference Bureau. She leads several projects, in partnership with the U.S. Census Bureau, to collect and incorporate data-user feedback into the American Community Survey and the decennial census. A fellow of the American Statistical Association and president-elect of the Southern Demographic Association, she has also served on the Census Bureau’s Scientific Advisory Committee and a National Academies panel on the ACS. She previously worked as senior executive and chief demographer for two marketing information companies, as research director at American Demographics magazine, and as faculty member at Cornell University and the University of Iowa. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Reed College and a master’s and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, all in sociology.

SESSION C

SANDRA CLARK is a senior researcher at the U.S. Census Bureau, currently overseeing research to integrate administrative data into the American Community Survey program. With over 18 years of experience working on the ACS, she has been involved in a variety of research projects spanning all areas of the survey’s life cycle. She has led efforts to review response data, and conducted numerous evaluations designed to monitor and improve data collection and processing activities. Her current research interests include examining web paradata and researching the use of administrative records in surveys.

JONATHAN ROTHBAUM is chief of the Income Statistics Branch in the Social, Economic and Housing Statistics Division of the U.S. Census Bureau. The Income Statistics Branch is primarily responsible for collecting, processing, analyzing, and publishing income data collected in the Current Population Survey’s Annual Social and Economic Supplement and in the American Community Survey. His research has focused on nonresponse and data quality in income surveys and on using surveys to study intergenerational mobility in the U.S. He has a Ph.D. in economics from George Washington University.

ANDREW KELLER is a mathematical statistician in the Decennial Statistical Studies Division, U.S. Census Bureau, and has been with the Census Bureau since 2004. His research has covered census coverage measurement, estimation, and imputation, and his current work includes applying administrative records to reduce contacts in the decennial census nonresponse followup operation.

JOHN CZAJKA is a senior fellow at Mathematica Policy Research, which he joined in 1978. His work has focused on statistical uses of administrative records and the evaluation of survey estimates of income, assets, health insurance coverage, and program participation. He has served on several National Academies expert panels—most recently as chair of the panel that assessed the 2014 redesign of the Survey of Income and Program Participation. He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and a past president of the Washington Statistical Society. He has a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan.

SESSION D

ERIC OLSON is chief of Census Income and Housing at Statistics Canada. He worked previously with researchers on the Longitudinal Administrative Databank, a 20% sample of Canadian tax filers (now spanning 35 years). He then shifted to work on the 2006 Census, piloting an administrative data option to let respondents skip the income question (by 2016, fully

integrating administrative data as the only mode for income sources). He holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Montréal and an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics.

ERIN DALTON is deputy director of the Office of Data Analysis, Research, and Evaluation, Department of Human Services in the Department of Human Services of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Previously, she held positions with the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, and the Allegheny County Executive’s office, and was an adjunct staff member of the RAND Corporation. She holds an undergraduate degree from American University and an M.S. in public policy from Carnegie Mellon University.

SCOTT HOLAN is professor of statistics and professor of public affairs at the University of Missouri, as well as senior research fellow in the office of the Associate Director for Research and Methodology at the U.S. Census Bureau. He has previously held several visiting researcher positions at the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A fellow of the American Statistical Association and an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, he is co-principal investigator for a node of the National Science Foundation–Census Research Network. He has B.S. and M.S. degrees in mathematics from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a Ph.D. in statistics from Texas A&M University.

SESSION E

VERONICA HELMS is a social science analyst in the Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which she recently joined from HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research. She conducts in-house research at HUD and provides analytical support for HUD administrative data. She has also been guest researcher at the Office of Analysis and Epidemiology at the National Center for Health Statistics. Her research focuses on utilizing complex data sources to examine the link between housing and health, social determinants of health, data linkage, and maternal and child health populations. She holds a bachelor’s degree in public health from the University of Georgia and a Master’s of Public Health (MPH) from George Washington University. She is currently a part-time doctoral candidate in health equity and social justice at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

LISA MIREL is chief of the special projects branch in the Office of Analysis and Epidemiology at the National Center for Health Statistics. She has also held positions as a survey statistician at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Government Accountability Office, and as part of the Division of Health and Nutrition

Examination Surveys at NCHS. She has an M.S. in biostatistics from the University of Michigan.

ROBERT AVERY is project director of the National Mortgage Database at the Federal Housing Finance Agency. He joined the FHFA after retiring as a senior economist from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. He was one of the founders of the triannual Survey of Consumer Finances and designed the loan sampling systems used for the Federal Reserve’s examinations of small bank safety and soundness and for large syndicated loans. Previously, he held academic appointments at Cornell University and Carnegie Mellon University. He has a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

MIKE CARNATHAN is researcher and manager of the Research and Analytics Division at the Atlanta Regional Commission, as well as one of the founders of Neighborhood Nexus, a “community intelligence system” intended to promote data-driven decision making in the Atlanta region. He previously worked in public relations and in journalism. He holds degrees in history and journalism, as well as an MPA from the University of Georgia.

SARAH BURGOYNE is the chief demographer and director of data science at Claritas, in which capacity she leads a team to use data from the decennial census, the American Community Survey, and other sources to produce small-area population estimates. She has had experience in marshaling data from a wide range of public and private sources. She represents the private sector in championing public data by serving on the boards for the Association of Public Data Users and the Population Association of America’s Committee on Applied Demography. She has a master’s degree in applied demography from Bowling Green State University, where she is also pursuing a Ph.D. in family demography.

AMY O’HARA is research professor in the Massive Data Institute at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, where she is also codirector of the Georgetown Statistical Research Data Center. Previously, she was chief of the Center for Administrative Records Research and Applications at the U.S. Census Bureau from 2014–2017, having worked at the Census Bureau since 2004, and was also senior research scholar at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. She has a B.S. in economics from the State University of New York College at Buffalo and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from the University of Notre Dame.

SESSION H

DOROTHY (DOTTIE) BARTH has been at the Census Bureau for 6 years and with the ACS Experiments Branch for over 3 years. She is responsible

for various aspects of the ACS mail messaging tests, which include creating research plans, developing materials, and analyzing response data. Over the past 3 years she has worked on 7 mail messaging tests, reviewed cognitive testing materials for various ACS questions, and performed analysis for the 2016 ACS Content Test, and is currently working on the team project of revamping the ACS mail materials using the new ACS Strategic Framework for respondent communication.

SESSION I

ELIZABETH POEHLER is a mathematical statistician at the U.S. Census Bureau. She has worked at the Census Bureau since 1998 and has been the chief of the American Community Survey Experiments Branch since 2014. She received her bachelor’s degree in applied statistics from Rochester Institute of Technology and an M.S. in survey methodology from the University of Maryland.

DOUGLAS WILLIAMS is senior survey methodologist at Westat. He has worked at Westat for 17 years, currently as a part of the Survey Methods Unit. His current research involves methods for improving response for in-person surveys and adapting telephone surveys to self-administered modes. He currently serves as the program chair for the Washington–Baltimore chapter of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (DC-AAPOR). He has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of California, San Diego, and an M.S. in survey methodology from the University of Maryland.

JAMES WAGNER is research associate professor at the Survey Research Center, University of Michigan, as well as associate director of the Michigan Program in Survey Methodology. He also teaches in the Joint Program in Survey Methodology and serves as principal investigator on several large studies; he is currently the chief mathematical statistician for the National Survey of Family Growth. He serves as associate editor of Survey Research Methods and the Journal of Official Statistics. He holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in political science from Macalester College and the University of Michigan, respectively, and a Ph.D. in survey methodology from the University of Michigan.

SESSION J

BRODERICK OLIVER is a research statistician at the U.S. Census Bureau. He conducts research and designs experiments to improve the response rates and reduce respondent burden on the American Community Survey.

JONATHAN SCHREINER joined the Census Bureau in 2017, in the Survey Methods and Measures area of the American Community Survey Office. Prior to working at the Census Bureau, he was a sociology professor at Western Washington University and studied survey methodology with Donald Dillman at Washington State University. He holds a master’s degree in sociology and graduated with distinction with degrees in political science and philosophy from Pennsylvania State University.

MICHAEL SCHOBER is professor of psychology and vice provost for research at The New School for Social Research, having served as dean of the New School from 2006–2013. His research and teaching are focused on psycholinguistics, human–computer interaction, research methods, and psychology and design. He and longtime collaborator Frederick Conrad (Survey Research Center, University of Michigan, and Joint Program in Survey Methodology, University of Maryland) were jointly awarded the 2013 Warren J. Mitofsky Innovators Award from the American Association of Public Opinion Research. He has a Sc.B. degree in cognitive science from Brown University and a Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University.

SESSION K

DAVID RAGLIN is chief of the Survey Analytics and Measures Branch in the ACS Office at the U.S. Census Bureau. He has worked on the ACS for almost 17 years and has been at the Census Bureau for 34 years. He has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Michigan Tech University and a master’s degree in survey methodology from the University of Maryland.

JESSICA HOLZBERG is a research survey statistician in the Center for Survey Measurement at the U.S. Census Bureau, where she conducts questionnaire development, evaluation, and research projects for the decennial census, ACS, and other federal government surveys. Her recent research interests include survey burden, privacy and confidentiality, and the use of online methods for cognitive pretesting. She is an active member of the American Association for Public Opinion Research and an associate editor of Survey Practice. She has bachelor’s degrees in psychology and sociology and a master’s degree in survey methodology from the University of Maryland.

RUTH CHAN is a respondent advocate at the U.S. Census Bureau. She began her career at the Census Bureau in 2012, working in survey operations with the Annual Survey of Manufactures, Economic Census, and the National Ambulatory Medical Care Surveys. Prior to her work as a statistician, she studied policy analysis and management at Cornell University and public administration at Syracuse University.

NICOLE SCANNIELLO is the assistant division chief for program management and communications in the ACS Office, U.S. Census Bureau. She joined the

Census Bureau as a survey statistician in 1998 and has held several roles over the years, including service as chief of the ACS coordination staff overseeing the development of the edit review, data review, and data product processes for the subject matter analysts working on the ACS. She completed her master’s and bachelor’s degrees in sociology at the University of Virginia, and also holds a master’s certificate in project management from George Washington University.

SCOTT KEETER is senior survey advisor at Pew Research Center and an expert in American public opinion and political behavior. Prior to joining Pew Research Center, he held academic appointments at George Mason University, Rutgers University, and Virginia Commonwealth University; he also directed VCU’s Survey Research Laboratory. He is a past president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research and, in 2016, was the recipient of the association’s highest honor, the AAPOR Award for Lifetime Achievement for “outstanding contribution to the field of public opinion research.” Since 1980, he has served as an election night analyst of exit polls for NBC News. He has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Davidson College and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of North Carolina.

DARBY MILLER STEIGER is a senior survey methodologist at Westat and is an expert in questionnaire design, focus groups, and cognitive testing. Joining Westat in 2012, she has more than 20 years of experience designing and testing hundreds of social science questionnaires for a broad range of government agencies and organizations. She specializes in designing and redesigning complex federal surveys to help improve response rates and data quality in today’s evolving survey environment. She also trains researchers in cognitive interviewing and focus group moderating techniques. She has a bachelor’s degree in mathematical economics and master’s degrees in survey methodology and public policy, all from the University of Michigan.