Standards of Evidence

Steering Committee Bios

Chair:

Norman Bradburn is a senior fellow with the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) and Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago. He is the former assistant director for the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate at the National Science Foundation. He has served three terms as director of NORC, from 1967 to 1992. He served as provost of the University of Chicago from 1984 to 1989. Dr. Bradburn is a leading researcher on survey methodology. He is a member of the research and advisory panel of the U.S. General Accounting Office; and a member of the Panel to Review the Statistical Procedures for the Decennial Census. He also is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the International Statistical Institute and a fellow of the American Statistical Association. He has served on several committees of the National Research Council, including the Committee on the Indicators of Precollege Science and Mathematics Education; the Committee on the Study of Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States; and the Committee on National Statistics, which he chaired between 1993 and 1998. Dr. Bradburn received a Ph.D. in social psychology from Harvard University.

Members:

Cynthia Beall (NAS) is the S. Idell Pyle Professor of Anthropology, and holds secondary appointments as Professor of Anatomy and Professor of Global Health in the School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU). She is also the Co-director of the Center for Research on Tibet and the Director of CWRU’s Steering Committee on Evolutionary Biology. Dr. Beall is a physical anthropologist whose special interests are human growth and development, aging, human adaptability and medical ecology. She previously conducted research on growth and development and infant morbidity/mortality in Andean populations, high altitude hypoxia and aging in Nepal and Bolivia and physical activity, physical fitness and aging in Nepal. Her current research in Tibet is on high-altitude human adaptability and aging and diet. Dr. Beall is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. She has served on several National Research Council Committees, including the U.S. National Committee of the International Union of Biological Sciences, which she chaired from 2001 to 2003, and the Board on International Scientific Organizations, which she currently chairs. Dr. Beall received a Ph.D. in anthropology from Pennsylvania State University in 1976.

Lawrence Bobo (NAS) is the Norman Tishman and Charles M. Diker Professor of Sociology and of Afro-American Studies at Harvard University. From 1984 through 1990 he was in the sociology department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. From 1990 through spring of 1997 he was in UCLA's sociology department where he served, at various times, as Associate Chair, Program Director for Survey Research, and Director of the Center for Research on Race, Politics, and Society. He is co-author of Racial Attitudes in America: Trends and Interpretations, and co-editor for Racialized Politics: The Debate on Racism in America and Urban Inequality: Evidence from Four Cities. He is Founding Co-editor of the new journal Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race. He has been a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation, and a Phi Beta Kappa National Honor Society Visiting Scholar. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Social Science Research Council, and currently serves on the boards of the American Institutes for Research, the Roper Center, Stanford University’s Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity, and the University of Illinois’ Institute for Government and Public Affairs. He is undertaking new research on African Americans during the 2000 presidential election and on the intersection of race, crime, and public policy. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He has served on the National Research Council’s Panel on Poverty and Family Assistance: Concepts, Information Needs, and Measurement Methods, the Panel on Methods for Assessing Discrimination, and the Committee to Review Research on Police Policies and Practices. He received a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan in 1984.

Robert F. Boruch is the University Trustee Chair Professor in the Graduate School of Education and Professor of Statistics in the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the Co-director of the Center for Research and Evaluation of Social Policy, and the Policy Research, Evaluation and, Measurement Program. Before coming to the University of Pennsylvania in 1989, Dr. Boruch was a member of Northwestern University’s faculty. He serves on the board of trustees for the W. T. Grant Foundation and the board of directors for the American Institutes for Research. He has served on advisory committees for the U.S. Department of Education, General Accounting Office, and other federal agencies. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the American Statistical Association. Dr. Boruch’s work focuses on research methods for determining the severity and scope of social and educational problems, implementation of programs and policies, and estimating the effects and effectiveness of interventions. He contributes to work on randomized trials in education and training, welfare reform, health services, housing, and crime and justice, with a particular interest in the assessment or improvement of programs sponsored by federal government agencies in the U.S. and by private foundations. Current projects include: the Third International Science and Mathematics Study; International Campbell Collaboration on Systematic Reviews; place-based randomized field experiments; and the Institute of Education Sciences What Works Clearinghouse. He has served on several National Research Council committees, including the Committee on Law and Justice and the Committee on Scientific Principles in Education Research. He received a Ph.D. in psychology with a statistics minor from Iowa State University in 1968.

Nancy Cartwright is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Sciences at the London School of Economics (LSE), and Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. Prior to her tenure at LSE, she was an Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at the University of Maryland from 1971 to 1973, and then from 1973 to 1991 worked in the Philosophy Department at Stanford University. She has also had visiting appointments at UCLA, Princeton, Pittsburgh, California Institute of Technology and Oslo University and has been a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Berlin, at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research at Bielefeld, and at the Pittsburgh Center for the Philosophy of Science. Dr. Cartwright has received the MacArthur Fellowship and is a Fellow of the British Academy. Her research interests include history and philosophy of science (especially physics and economics), causal inference, and objectivity in science. She is currently involved in research projects on 'Measurement in Physics and Economics' at the LSE Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science and 'The German Historical School in Economics' at the Centre for History and Economics at Cambridge. Dr. Cartwright served on the National Research Council’s U.S. National Committee for the International Union of the History and Philosophy of Secience. She received a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1971.

Mark Chassin (IOM), M.D., M.P.P., M.P.H. is the Edmond A. Guggenheim Professor of Health Policy and Chairman of the Department of Health Policy at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.  He is also Executive Vice President for Excellence in Patient Care at the Mount Sinai Medical Center.  Before coming to Mount Sinai, Dr. Chassin served as Commissioner of the New York State Department of Health.  He is a board-certified internist and practiced emergency medicine for 12 years. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and co-chaired its National Roundtable on Health Care Quality. In 2003, the Mount Sinai Medical Center launched a major new initiative, led by Dr. Chassin,  to achieve unprecedented excellence in all aspects of patient care: safety, clinical outcomes, the experiences of patients and families, and the working environment of caregivers.  This initiative is a combined effort of the Mount Sinai Hospital and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and aims to create models of world-class excellence in patient care  that produce substantial, measurable, and sustainable gains in all of these vital dimensions of patient care. In 2001, Dr. Chassin was recognized for his contributions to the fields of quality measurement and improvement with several honors.  He was selected in the first group of honorees as a lifetime member of the National Associates of the National Academies, a new program of the National Academy of Sciences recognizing career contributions to the National Academies.  He also received the Founders' Award of the American College of Medical Quality and the Ellwood Individual Award of the Foundation for Accountability. Dr. Chassin's research focuses on developing measures of the quality of health care, using those measures to improve quality, and understanding the relationship of quality measurement and improvement to health policy.  The Department of Health Policy conducts a wide variety of health services and health policy research studies.  Dr. Chassin received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Harvard University and a master's degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.  He received a master's degree in public health from the University of California at Los Angeles.

Ron Haskins is a Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution and a Senior Consultant at the Annie E. Casey Foundation. His has served as the Senior Advisor to the President for Welfare Policy at the White House; the Majority Staff Director for the Subcommittee on Human Resources, Committee on Ways and Means in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the Welfare Counsel for the Republican Staff of the Subcommittee on Human Resources, Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives. His research interests include welfare reform, education, child care, child support enforcement, and child abuse. He was a co-editor for Welfare Reform and Beyond: The Future of the Safety Net and The New World of Welfare. He received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1975.

Susan Mayer is dean and associate professor at the Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies and at the College at the University of Chicago, and also serves as a faculty affiliate with the University’s Center for Human Potential and Public Policy. She is past director of the Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research. Dr. Mayer is the author of several articles and book chapters on the measurement of poverty, the consequences for poor children of growing up in poor neighborhoods, and the effect of income on children's well-being and the social and political consequences of economic inequality and segregation. She is the author of the book, What Money Can't Buy: Family Income and Children's Life Chances (Harvard University Press) and co-editor with Paul Peterson of the book, Earning and Learning: How Schools Matter (Brookings Institution Press). Her current research is on the effect of economic mobility across generations and the role of non-cognitive skills on social and economic success. Dr. Mayer currently serves on the NRC Panel to Review the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Measurement of Food Insecurity and Hunger. She received a Ph.D. in sociology from Northwestern University in 1986.

Kenneth Prewitt is the Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs, School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Previous positions include: Director of the United States Census Bureau, President of the Social Science Research Council, Senior Vice President of the Rockefeller Foundation, and Director of the National Opinion Research Center. He taught for fifteen years at the University of Chicago, and for shorter periods, at Stanford University, Washington University, the University of Nairobi, and Makerere University (Uganda). Among his awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship, honorary degrees from Carnegie Mellon and Southern Methodist University, a Distinguished Service Award from the New School for Social Research, and The Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit from the Federal Republic of Germany, and various awards associated with his Directorship of the Census Bureau. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the Academy of Political and Social Science, the Russell-Sage Foundation and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He recently published Politics and Science in Census Taking (Russell Sage). He has also published on how the ethno-racial classification is used in national statistics, and why it is now undergoing radical change — a topic on which he has lectured widely. Among the dozen other books he has authored or co-authored are Political Socialization, Elites and American Democracy, The Recruitment of Political Leaders, and a textbook on American government. Among his 75 contributions to professional journals and edited collections are studies of the private foundations in the United States and essays on higher education. He has served on numerous editorial boards, most recently as the co-editor of the public policy section of the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Prewitt has served on several NRC committees, and his currently a member of the Committee on National Statistics, the Panel on Access to Research Data: Balancing Risks and Opportunities, and the U.S. National Committee for the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. He received a Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University in 1963.

Timothy Smeeding is the director of the Center for Policy Research, the Associate Dean for Sponsored Research, the Maxwell Professor of Public Policy, Professor of Economics and Public Administration, and the director of the Luxembourg Income Study at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. His research interests include the economics of public policy, especially social policy and at risk populations; poverty and income distribution, income transfers, and tax policy; health economics and health care finance; economics of aging; economics on non-money income and non-wage compensation; social statistics; comparative international social policy; time and well-being; and generational equity. Dr. Smeeding has co-authored or co-edited several publications in this area, including the recently published books The Economics of an Aging Society, The Future of the Family, and Poor Kids in a Rich Country: America’s Children in Comparative Perspective, He received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin in 1975.

Ewart Thomas is a professor of psychology at Stanford University. His research interests include the development and application of mathematical and statistical models to many areas of psychology and social sciences with particular focus on signal detection, information processing, motivation, assessment of group differences, parent-infant interaction, categorization and inter-rater reliability. He is also pursuing research in theoretical population biology, the dynamics of language variation, law and social sciences, and economic planning in developing countries. Dr. Thomas has served on several National Research Council committees, including the Board on Testing and Assessment and the Committee on Equivalency and Linkage of Educational Tests. He received a Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Cambridge in 1967.

DBASSE Liaison:

Richard C. Atkinson, seventeenth president of the University of California, took office on October 1, 1995.  Before becoming president of the UC System, he served as chancellor of UC San Diego; prior to that he served as director of the National Science Foundation and was a long-term member of the faculty at Stanford University.

An internationally respected scholar and scientist, Atkinson became the fifth chancellor of UC San Diego in 1980. During his tenure, the university doubled in size to about 18,000 students while increasing the distinction and breadth of its programs. The campus consistently placed among the top five universities in federal funding for research. In 1995, the quality of its graduate programs was ranked tenth in the nation by the National Research Council.