AAPOR Award for Exceptionally Distinguished Achievement
The AAPOR Award for Exceptionally Distinguished Achievement is the Association’s lifetime achievement award and is given for an outstanding contribution to the field of public opinion research, including: advances in theory, empirical research and methods; improvements in ethical standards; and promotion of understanding among the public, media and/or policy makers.
Nora Cate Schaeffer, the 2025 AAPOR Award recipient, is an excellent example of what AAPOR stands for—she is an enormously curious intellectual interested in meaningfully understanding varying groups of people. In doing so, she has contributed significantly to how we understand, design, and conduct interviews, and the social science community has benefited greatly from her advancements. She is also an incredible leader with a steady hand through crises, whether it be building up the now-flourishing University of Wisconsin Survey Center or leading AAPOR through 2019-2020. Many in this room remember 2020 as a time when the world stood still, and that made our work even more pressing.
Nora’s seminal work on synthesizing conversational analysis with Stanley Presser in The Science of Asking Questions fundamentally changed how questionnaire design is considered. The inconsistency with which interviews were conducted had significant effects on responses, and few have studied this interviewer/interviewee dynamic as thoroughly as she has. Standardizing this process—especially for complex, sensitive, or cross-cultural topics—enables us all to yield more meaningful responses and, ultimately, understand each other better.
Nora’s charitable service record is almost as long and important as her academic career. Not only has she mentored countless students, but she has also served on an unusually high number of government committees, panels, and boards as well as being a leader in MAPOR, AAPOR, and ASA. She also served as an editorial board member of AAPOR’s flagship journals Public Opinion Quarterly (POQ) and Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology (JSSM). No one should be surprised when Nora’s application had an overwhelming number of signatories from giants in the field—including an endorsement from the late Don Dillman, Ph.D.
Ultimately, so much of social science is an exercise in empathy. To understand people, you have to meet them where they are, and that means being kind and approaching them without judgment. New data science and statistical techniques have allowed us to learn more about each other; however, no amount of data can fix or replace a poorly designed interview. Nora dedicated so much of her career to breaking down these barriers and was extremely generous in doing so—sharing her meticulously researched findings for the community’s benefit. AAPOR is honored to have a member like Nora Cate Schaeffer among our community, and we hope this award inspires others to be as impactful as she has been to the community at large.
The AAPOR Book Award
The AAPOR Book Award seeks to recognize influential books that have stimulated theoretical and scientific research in public opinion and/or influenced our understanding or application of survey research methodology. Eligibility for the award includes any book in the field that is at least three years old (to allow time for books to be read and reviewed), including any published before or during the period covered by the list of the Fifty Books That Have Significantly Shaped Public Opinion Research 1946-1995.” (The books on the “Fifty Books” list have already been recognized by AAPOR and are not eligible for the annual book award.)
Degrees of Democracy: Politics, Public Opinion, and Policy
by Stuart N. Soroka and Christopher Wlezien
The Burns “Bud” Roper Fellow Award
The Burns “Bud” Roper Fellow Award is named for the late Burns “Bud” Roper who provided a substantial bequest in his will to endow the Roper Award fund. Roper Fellows are people who work in any sector of survey research or public opinion research, who work in relatively isolated settings, and who are in the early stages of their careers. They receive financial assistance to help them attend the AAPOR Annual Conference and/or participate in conference short courses; most are first-time conference attendees.
Ali Amini, American University
Ryan Brady, Bully Pulpit International
Hannah Borenstein, DHM Research
Nicole Cabrera, Reveal Global Consulting
Xinyi Chen, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan
Leni Doehrmann, Baldwin Wallace University
Meagan Doll, Minnesota Journalism Center, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Abby Foy, Ipsos Public Affairs
Mithila Guha, Department of Marketing and Business Analytics, Lucas College and Graduate School of Business, San José State University
Jared Gumbs, SSRS
Manel Hanafi, SSRS
Muhammad Hassan Bin Afzal, Department of Political Science and Public Service, The University of Tennessee, Chattanooga
Lilian Huang, NORC at the University of Chicago
Callie Johnson, U.S. Government Accountability Office
Sarah Kahl, Ipsos Public Affairs
Tylar Kist, American Academy of Pediatrics
Stefanie Laudolff, Community Research Institute at Baldwin Wallace University
Dominique McDonald, EVITARUS
Evan McKee
David Martin, Rutgers Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling
Presley Moreno, EVITARUS
Hannah Murrow, NORC at the University of Chicago
Cassidy Nelson, Oregon Values and Beliefs Center (OVBC)
P. Linh Nguyen, French Institute for Demographic Research (INED)
Maclean Ninsaw Gbati, University of Ghana
Red Paulin, City Connects at Mary E. Walsh Center for Thriving Children at Boston College
Konrad Powell, Iowa State University – Center for Survey Statistics and Methodology, Survey Research Services Unit
Jacob Raymond, The Harris Poll
Nathan Reece, European Social Survey ERIC
Robert Rodriguez, The Institute for Social Research at Sacramento State University
Zyaire Shih, Center for Emerging Democracies, International Institute, University of Michigan
Adam Stefkovics, HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences
Junyan Tian, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan
Xinran Wang, EVITARUS
Michelle Witlock, Burson
The AAPOR Inclusive Voices Award
The AAPOR Inclusive Voices Award recognizes the important data sets, research, and survey methods that have improved the ability to study complex social phenomena related to understudied populations. The award will be presented to the scholars/researchers, organizations, or institutions who have produced the scholarship (including data collection, methodological approaches, or publications).
Program for Research on Black Americans,
Institute of Social Research at the University of Michigan
The AAPOR Policy Impact Award
The AAPOR Policy Impact Award was developed to acknowledge that a key purpose of opinion and other survey research is to facilitate better-informed decisions. The award recognizes outstanding research that has had a clear impact on improving policy decisions, practice and discourse, either in the public or private sectors.
International Health Policy Surveys, The Commonwealth Fund, with SSRS
The AAPOR Public Service Award
The AAPOR Public Service Award award is intended to recognize and honor outstanding public service and dedication to maintaining AAPOR standards. It recognizes persons who work on behalf of the public sector and have contributed to the quality of government surveys, data systems, research, leadership, and/or policy.
Linda Young, US Department of Agriculture
National Agricultural Statistics Service
Monroe G. Sirken Award
The Monroe G. Sirken Award is given annually to a distinguished survey researcher for contributions to interdisciplinary survey research that improves the theory and methods of collecting, verifying, processing, presenting or analyzing survey data.
Kirk Wolter, University of Chicago
The Seymour Sudman Student Paper Competition
The Seymour Sudman Student Paper Competition award is in memory of Seymour Sudman. It recognizes his many important contributions to AAPOR as well as his teaching and mentoring students in the survey research profession.
Leveraging Wearable Sensor Data to Enhance Survey Self-Reports: A Mass Imputation Approach
Deji Suolang, University of Michigan
Honorable Mention
Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Self-Rated Health: Analyzing Conceptual Differences on Understanding of Health through Web Probing
Stephanie Morales, University of Michigan
The Student Conference Award
The Student Conference Award was established to fund students to attend the AAPOR Annual Conference. Student Conference Awards are offered to students who are in need of financial support so that they may attend the conference and experience this important educational and networking event for survey methodology and public opinion researchers.
Alberto Arletti, University of Padua, Italy
Ujjayini Das, University of Maryland, College Park
Grace DesJardins, University of Michigan
Soojeong Kim, The University of Texas, Austin
Max Melchior Lang, University of Oxford
Doyun Lee, University of Arizona
Ailin Liu, LMU Munich
Marco Mendoza Aviña, Harvard University
Muhammad Nouman Nazar Qureshi, University of Minnesota
Frieder Rodewald, University of Mannheim
Haley Triem, The University of Texas, Austin
Alexander Tripp, Vanderbilt University
Yuhui Zhu, Temple University
AAPOR Student Inclusion Fellowship
The fellowship targets members of historically underrepresented groups interested in the study of public opinion and survey research methodology. AAPOR believes that the scholarly and practical understanding of our discipline is enhanced by the presence and involvement of different perspectives and creative thought. Such diversity and inclusion lead to consequential research, improved interdisciplinary collaboration, and a greater ability to address, understand, and solve problems related to public opinion and survey research methodology.
Seth Adarkwah Yiadom, Ohio State University
Isabela Bertolini Coelho, University of Maryland
Rona Hu, University of Michigan
Moo Sun (Sunny) Kim, University of Texas, Austin
Tatum Leclair, Loyola University Chicago
Jennifer Lin, Northwestern University
Sergio Daniel Martinez Martinez, University of Michigan
Kaidar Nurumov, University of Michigan
Juanita Vivas Bastidas, Loyola University, Chicago
Chelsea Waddell, University of Michigan
The Student Poster Award
The Student Poster Award winner is announced each year at the annual conference. To be eligible for the award, students must have their poster abstracts accepted for presentation at the conference. The award committee will consider all posters that relate to the study of public opinion, whether they focus on theory, substantive findings, research methods, and/or statistical techniques used in such research.
Can Language Models Replace Human Surveys? a Technical Analysis
Sarah Ball, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität
The Warren J. Mitofsky Innovators Award
The Warren J. Mitofsky Innovators Award is designed to recognize accomplishments in the fields of public opinion and survey research that occurred in the past ten years, or that had their primary impact on the field during the past decade. These innovations could consist of new theories, ideas, applications, methodologies or technologies. To be considered for the award, they must be publicly documented. The award can be given to individuals, groups or institutions.
Civic Health and Institutions Project, a 50 States Survey (CHIP50)
AAPOR citation for Mandy Sha, Kristen Olson, Janice Ballou, and Dawn Nelson, Representatives of the 2020 AAPOR Conference Committee