Julia N. Soulakova, Sirken Award Committee Chair
Barry I. Graubard, scientist emeritus at the US National Cancer Institute, has been named the 2026 recipient of the Monroe G. Sirken Award in Interdisciplinary Survey Research Methods.
Graubard has made major interdisciplinary contributions throughout his career, bridging survey methodology with epidemiology, cancer research, and related fields. He began as a mathematical statistician at the National Center for Health Statistics in 1977 and earned his PhD in mathematical statistics from the University of Maryland in 1991. Since 1997, he has served as a senior investigator in the biostatistics branch at the National Cancer Institute, holding leadership roles at several federal agencies along the way.
His work in survey sampling established foundational standards for the design, conduct, and analysis of national surveys. His methods—including linearization-based variance estimation and Korn-Graubard confidence intervals—have been implemented in statistical computing packages.
Beyond research, Graubard has mentored dozens of statisticians and scientists and taught the Analysis of Health Surveys course at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland. An ASA Fellow, he has also received the ASA Mentoring Award and Founders Award.
Graubard will deliver the Sirken Lecture, titled “Intersection of Sample Survey Research and Biostatistics in Public Health and Epidemiology,” at the 2026 Joint Statistical Meetings in Boston on August 5 at 10:30 a.m.
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