The Washington Statistical Society (WSS) and RTI International recently selected Courtney Kennedy, director of survey research at the Pew Research Center, as the 2019 recipient of the Gertrude M. Cox Award.
Before and since earning her PhD in 2010 from the University of Michigan, Kennedy has contributed substantially to the survey research profession. After helping to pioneer the inclusion of cellphones in telephone surveys and developing the dual-frame concept, she turned her focus to online surveys and helped develop the Pew Research Center’s online panel. Her research interests include the impact of survey nonresponse, measurement error, mode effects, and nonprobability sampling.
Kennedy’s influence goes beyond the statistical community as she applies her theoretical research to social issues. For example, she was chair of AAPOR’s Ad Hoc Committee on 2016 Election Polling. Furthermore, she has built bridges between the survey research and journalism communities, helping the media understand and more effectively disseminate polling data and results. To quote from her nomination, “Although her career path has been very different from Gertrude Cox’s, Cox would recognize a kindred spirit in Courtney Kennedy.”
Kennedy will deliver the Cox Award talk at the Bethesda, Maryland, NORC office June 26 at 4 p.m., preceding the WSS Annual Dinner. The award includes a $1,000 honorarium, travel expenses to attend the WSS Annual Dinner, and a commemorative plaque.
The Gertrude M. Cox award was established in 2003 through a joint agreement between the Washington Statistical Society and RTI International to recognize statisticians in early to mid-career who have already made significant contributions to statistical practice.
The award is in memory of Gertrude M. Cox (1900–1978). In 1945, Cox became director of the Institute of Statistics of the Consolidated University of North Carolina. In the 1950s, as head of the department of experimental statistics at North Carolina State College, she played a key role in establishing mathematical statistics and biostatistics departments at the University of North Carolina. Upon her retirement from North Carolina State University in 1960, Cox became the first head of the Statistical Research Division at the newly founded RTI. She was a founding member of the International Biometric Society (IBS) and, in 1949, became the first woman elected into the International Statistical Institute. She served as president of both the American Statistical Association (1956) and IBS (1968–1969). In 1975, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Courtney Kennedy will deliver the Cox Award talk at the Bethesda, Maryland, NORC office June 26 at 4 p.m.
Testing for Bots and Other Suspect Data in Online Surveys: A Multi-Panel Comparison
What our nation knows about public opinion regarding the president and major policy debates now comes largely from online polls. While some online polls are recruited offline using probability-based techniques, most are recruited online using any number of opt-in approaches. Both types of online polls are potentially susceptible to erroneous data from inattentive respondents. Some opt-in polls might be susceptible to additional threats stemming from their recruitment procedures. The field lacks rigorous estimates for the incidences of suspect respondents in public opinion polls. This talk presents preliminary results from a large multi-sourced data collection aimed at estimating incidences of suspect data in probability-based and opt-in online surveys.
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