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SRAM Welcomes New Faculty

SRAM Welcomes New Faculty
(from left to right) Bautista, Bilgen, Copeland, Dimotakis and Yu
The Survey Research and Methodology (SRAM) program at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln welcomed five new faculty for the 2017-18 academic year. Teaching SRAM courses and collaborating with graduate students on research, two are management faculty at Nebraska and three are affiliated with the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago. 
 
René Bautista is the senior research methodologist in the Statistics and Methodology Department at NORC, and serves as associate editor of the Public Opinion Quarterly. Bautista received his Ph.D. from the SRAM program in 2015. His research interests include nonresponse, measurement error, interviewer effects, mixed modes and data collection methods. Additionally he has expertise in survey research designs, qualitative work and advanced statistical analysis. He teaches coursework on data collection and survey questionnaire design and is an adjunct faculty member at the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. He is co-teaching Questionnaire Design (SRAM 947) this fall.
 
Another SRAM alumnus, Ipek Bilgen received her master’s degree in 2006 and her Ph.D. in 2011 from Nebraska. She is a senior research methodologist at NORC in the Statistics and Methodology Department. Bilgen oversees methodological research for NORC’s innovative panel-based research platform AmeriSpeak. During her time at NORC, she has been involved in various projects such as web, computer-assisted telephone, and mail contact and implementation strategies, as well as effective interviewing techniques, and survey error. She has expertise in other areas as well, including web, mail, and phone survey implementation and design and coverage errors in multi-mode surveys. She is co-teaching Questionnaire Design (SRAM 947) this fall.
 
One of the new faces to SRAM, Kennon Copeland is senior vice president of statistics and methodology for NORC. He has the distinction of being the first recipient of a Ph.D. in survey methodology at the University of Maryland. His expertise includes sample design and estimation methodology, overseeing these methodologies for government and public interest surveys. He has over 30 years of experience in sample design, weighting methods, and error measurement methods for large-scale household, establishment, and healthcare surveys, one of which is the National Immunization Survey. Copeland will share his expertise with SRAM students when he teaches Applied Sampling (SRAM 819) in the spring 2018 semester.
 
An assistant professor of management, Nikos Dimotakis received his Ph.D. at Michigan State University. He joined the faculty at Nebraska from Georgia State University, where he taught since 2011. His research involves innovative applications of survey techniques via event sampling methodology. He has taught courses in multilevel modeling and research methods. He will be teaching Principles of Survey Analysis (SRAM 816) in the spring 2018 semester.
 
Bringing her expertise in meta-analytic structural equation modeling, social network analysis, structural equation modeling, qualitative research and Bayesian analysis, Joya Yu joined the College of Business faculty as an assistant professor in management. A recent recipient of her Ph.D. from the University of Iowa, she will teach Data Collection Methods (SRAM 818) in the spring 2018 semester.
 
 
Published: November 22, 2017