Groves to direct Survey Research CenterANN ARBOR—Robert M. Groves has been named director of the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research (ISR), effective Aug. 1. The appointment was announced this week by David L. Featherman, director of the ISR, the world’s largest academic survey and research organization.

“Bob Groves emerged from our national search with a compelling vision for the future of university-based survey research,” says Featherman. “He has been instrumental in developing a new interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in survey methodology at Michigan. His return to Ann Arbor as a faculty member and scientist is also timely because the challenges to affordable high quality survey data and to the development of new technologies of data gathering thrust ISR and the Survey Research Center into a new era.”

Groves, a professor of sociology at the U-M and a senior research scientist at ISR, currently serves as director of the Joint Program in Survey Methodology, a graduate education consortium funded by the U.S. federal statistical agencies, and led by the University of Maryland, the U-M and Westat, a survey firm in Rockville, Md. Started in 1993 as the first in the nation to offer a master of science degree in survey methodology, the program is the model for a growing number of graduate programs in survey methodology, including the new Ph.D. degree program recently approved at Michigan.

The author, co-author, or editor of several classic books on survey methods, including “Telephone Survey Methodology” and “Survey Errors and Survey Costs,” Groves’ most recent edited volume, “Survey Nonresponse,” is forthcoming from John Wiley and Sons. He is also the author or co-author of more than 50 journal articles and book chapters, and of more than 100 conference proceedings papers or presentations on survey methods.

Groves received the 2001 Distinguished Achievement Award from the American Association for Public Opinion Research. The award citation notes his work “to transform both the theory and the practice of survey methodology through a rare blend of scholarship, teaching, and institution building” as well as his leadership in providing “a firmer intellectual footing for the field” by helping to create multidisciplinary doctoral programs in survey methodology.

Groves received an A.B. degree in sociology from Dartmouth College in 1970, M.A. degrees in statistics and sociology from the U-M in 1973 and a Ph.D. degree in sociology from U-M in 1975.

He joined the U-M Department of Sociology as a lecturer in 1975, attaining the rank of assistant professor in 1977, associate professor in 1983 and full professor in 1990. From 1990 to 1992, he served as associate director of statistical design, standards, and methodology at the U.S. Census Bureau, on loan from Michigan.

An elected fellow of the American Statistical Association, an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, and past president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Groves currently serves on the National Research Council‘s Committee on National Statistics, the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee, and the National Science Foundation Advisory Committee for the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate.

He has consulted on survey designs for a wide range of public and private organizations, from the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Bureau of the Census, and the Social Security Administration, to A.C. Nielsen and Company, the Gallup Organization, the American Lung Association, Cornell University, and Statistics Sweden.

Groves also serves as project director of the ongoing 2001 National Survey of Family Growth. Funded and directed by the National Center for Health Statistics, the survey of more than 18,000 men and women between the ages of 15 and 49 is the principal source for national estimates of factors affecting pregnancy and birth rates. # # # # # #

Established in 1948, the Institute for Social Research (ISR) is among the world’s oldest survey research organizations, and a world leader in the development and application of social science methodology. ISR conducts some of the most widely-cited studies in the nation, including the Survey of Consumer Attitudes, the National Election Studies, the Monitoring the Future Study, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the Health and Retirement Study, and the National Survey of Black Americans. ISR researchers also collaborate with social scientists in more than 60 nations on the World Values Surveys and other projects, and the Institute has established formal ties with universities in Poland, China, and South Africa. Visit the ISR Web site at www.isr.umich.edu for more information.

Robert M. GrovessociologyTelephone Survey MethodologyAmerican Association for Public Opinion ResearchU.S. Census BureauAmerican Statistical AssociationNational Institutes of Health