Subject: The new Survey Research Methods Center
From: The Methods Centers <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:39:10 +0000

Introducing the new and expanded

Survey Research Methods Center

We are pleased to announce that the Centers formerly known as the Survey Methods Center and Abt SRBI’s Advanced Methods Group are joining forces. The new Survey Research Methods Center (SRMC) is a cross-company consortium open to all Abt, Abt SRBI and Abt JTA researchers who are interested in survey methodology.  To facilitate collaboration between  our survey researchers across our entire company the SRMC will serve as a resource to:

1.       Supply advice and tools (boilerplate) to ensure survey methodological parts of proposals reflect state of the art practices and highlight our survey expertise.

2.       Connect projects with survey methods experts to assure the strongest design and execution of methodological project work.

3.       Develop our colleagues’ understanding and application of the best practices in survey methods research techniques.

4.    Discuss topics in survey research including current practices, new methodological  ideas and technical innovations.

The new uber Center will be led by Stanislav (Stas) Kolenikov and Randal (Randy) ZuWallack from Abt SRBI:

Stanislav (Stas) Kolenikov is the Senior Survey Statistician at Abt SRBI where he works on issues of sample design, weighting protocols, variance estimation, missing data imputation, experimental design, small area estimation, and other applications of advanced statistical methods in survey research. He received his Ph.D. in  Statistics from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (2005), and his earlier degrees in Economics (1998) and Electronic Engineering (1996) are from Russia. Prior to joining Abt SRBI, Stas has worked as an Assistant Professor of Statistics at University of Missouri-Columbia and as a consultant to the World Bank. He has taught short courses for Stata Corp., The American Statistical Association, Statistical Society of Canada, and the American Association for Public Opinion Research.

617-386-2621 / [email-masked]

Randal (Randy) ZuWallack is a Senior Statistician with 18 years of statistical experience spanning a wide variety of topics including public health, transportation and communications. He specializes in the development of cost-effective, goal-oriented study designs for state and national research and evaluation projects.  He has designed and managed surveys for federal agencies such as the U.S. Census Bureau, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Centers for Disease Control; as well as for numerous state and local government agencies.  ZuWallack joined Abt SRBI in the fall of 2012 after nine years at ICF International preceded by six years at the U.S. Census Bureau.  He has a M.S. in Statistics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and a B.A. in Mathematics from the State University of New York at Geneseo.

617-386-4068 / [email-masked]

More information is available on the Survey Research Methods Center Web Page, and soon on their AGI Community Page.

To join the Center, please contact Rena Kirsch