Affiliations
Director, Joint Program in Survey Methodology, University of Maryland
Professor, Methods and Statistics, University of Mannheim
Head, Statistical Methods Group, Institute for Employment Research of the German Federal Employment Agency, Nürnberg

Educational Background
University of California, Los Angeles: Postdoctoral Scholar, Statistics (2001–2002)
University of Konstanz: PhD, Social Science Research Methods (1997–2001)
University of Mannheim: Dipl., Sociology, Phil. of Science (1990–1996)

About Frauke
Frauke Kreuter is a statistician who straddles the worlds of statistics, survey research methods, and the social sciences (in addition to straddling two continents!). She grew up near Heidelberg in central Germany. Combining her love of math and statistics and a desire to work in the social sciences, Frauke studied in the University of Mannheim’s quantitative sociology program. Early on, she became interested in the quality of the data used to test theories, data-generating processes and their biases, and methods to analyze data. These interests remain strong, and with the increase in data sources and use of algorithms, she feels studying biases and their consequences has become even more important. Her current research focuses on mobile data collection privacy issues and the use of machine learning techniques to improve data collection and processing.

Frauke has leadership roles in multiple institutions. Since 2016, she has served as director of the Joint Program in Survey Methodology, which has faculty from the University of Maryland, University of Michigan, and Westat. In 2017, she co-founded the Coleridge Initiative—with faculty from New York University and The University of Chicago—to provide research and training for city, state, and federal government employees. In Germany, in addition to a faculty appointment at the University of Mannheim, Frauke has led the Statistical Methods Group at the German Institute for Employment Research since 2010. Providing analytical support across the German federal employment agency, she has pushed for ways to meet evolving challenges, recently implementing a new service unit to create awareness of bias-variance trade-offs and support efforts to improve data quality at the design stage of data collection. She has also extended her activities to other countries through the International Program in Survey and Data Science, which she established with partners on five continents. She makes all these positions work through wonderful teams and partnerships.

Frauke’s expertise across wide areas of statistics has made her a sought-after advisory board member. She has served on boards in the US federal statistical system and for national statistical institutes around the world. She co-chaired the Big Data Task Force of the American Association for Public Opinion Research and served on the National Academy of Sciences panel on the use of multiple data sources for federal statistics.

Frauke is a Gertrude Cox Award winner, which recognizes statisticians in early- to mid-career who have made significant breakthroughs in statistical practice. She is also an elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association. Her textbooks—Data Analysis Using Stata, Practical Tools for Designing and Weighting Survey Samples, and Big Data in Social Science—are used at universities worldwide, and her massive open online course (MOOC) in questionnaire design attracted more than 70,000 learners its first year. Frauke has published more than 100 scientific articles and 10 books and edited volumes. She has chaired dissertation committees of 14 PhD students.