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Meet Your 2008 PAPOR Executive Council |
Doug Strand -President Doug Strand, 2008 President of PAPOR, and Ph.D. (political science) is a Senior Market Research Analyst at Kaiser Permanente. There he focuses on how health affects work productivity, how health and work can be improved through workplace interventions, and how people assess the health care their receive. In addition, Doug continues to serve as Project Director for the Public Agendas and Citizen Engagement Survey (PACES), a recurrent national survey of the political preferences and political involvement of Americans, sponsored by UC Berkeley's Survey Research Center. Doug is currently co-authoring a book on American national elections and has previously published analyses of public opinion concerning gay rights. When he is not doing any of those activities, Doug plays chess, runs a DJ business, and has fun with his dogs and partner in Oakland, CA, where they live, and in any fun places they can get to. Contact Doug |
Ginger Blazier -Vice-President/President-Elect Ginger has over fifteen years of proven market research management experience, working with top national firms throughout her career history, specializing in the areas of healthcare, finance, IT, social research, and multiple facets of consumer and executive research. She is currently working at Directions In Research, a market research company in San Diego, which was established in 1985. She has been with DIR in the capacity of Field Director, VP of Operations, and, currently, Senior VP for Business Development. She is also currently on the National Board for the MRA, a member of the AMA, and the HMCA. On a personal note, Ginger had lived overseas for 15+ years in Latin America, South America, Japan, England, and Australia, due to her dad's profession in the oil industry, She speaks Spanish fluently and learned "need to know words" in Japanese! Interests include activities with her family and Samson, her Shetland Sheepdog, in addition to traveling, photography, cooking, and tennis. Contact Ginger |
Jennifer Paluch -Secretary ![]() Jennifer Paluch is a survey project manager for the PPIC Statewide Survey. Before joining PPIC, she worked as a Geographic Information Systems Analyst for a biological research laboratory in the Sierras. She holds a B.A. in political science/ international relations/geography from the State University of New York at Geneseo and an M.A. in geography from San Diego State University. Contact Jennifer |
Jill E. Darling -Treasurer and Webmaster Jill E. Darling is Associate Director of the Los Angeles Times Poll and has been associated with the organzition since 1988. The Times Poll is an award winning survey research unit which specializes in political and community surveys, as well as long being the only other conductor national and California exit polling. Ms. Darling, known as Jill Darling Richardson until a few years ago, is a member of the American Association of Public Opinion Researchers, and has served various capacities in its Pacific chapter - PAPOR - including president in 2004 and conference chair in 2007. This year she is chapter treasurer and webmaster. She has made various radio, television, cable, and educational appearances, and her publications have appeared in National Journal and online. Her degree in mathematics is from UCLA. She lives with her wife Lauren, their wine collection, and their several cats. She is a cook and a gardener, and travels as much as possible. The Times Poll is closing up shop after the November 2008 election, and she looks forward to the next phase of her career.
Contact Jill Darling |
Floyd Ciruli -Conference Chair Floyd Ciruli founded Ciruli Associates, a research and consulting firm specializing in public policy, community and cultural affairs and strategic planning, in 1985. Clients include major Colorado corporations, business and civic associations. Mr. Ciruli is perhaps best-known to Colorado audiences as a pollster and political analyst for 9-KUSA TV, The Denver Post, The Rocky Mountain News and KOA Radio. In addition, he has appeared on NBC Nightly News, Lehrer News Hour, CNN, Fox News Special Report with Brit Hume, and National Public Radio. Recent analysis has appeared in Time Magazine and The Economist. His firm publishes The Variable, a political newsletter analyzing current trends and public opinion, and hosts www.ciruli.com for political news and information on the web. Mr. Ciruli holds a law degree from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and a bachelor's degree in political science from UCLA. Mr. Ciruli is a member of the American Political Science Association and the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR). He serves on the Council of the Pacific Chapter of AAPOR as the Conference Chair. He teaches graduate classes in media, public opinion and policy for the Graduate School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado-Denver. He is a board member of the Social Science Foundation of the University of Denver Graduate
School of International Studies and the President-elect of the Denver Athletic Club. He is a native of Pueblo, Colorado.
Contact Floyd |
Paul T. Melevin -Associate Conference Chair Paul T. Melevin, is a Research Program Specialist II with the Survey and Applied Research Section of the State of California's Employment Development Department. He is the lead researcher in charge of overseeing many of the department's survey research efforts including the consumer satisfaction surveys for the Unemployment Insurance Branch. Paul has a deep interest in research ethics and in the protection of human subjects. He has organized and presented on numerous panels and workshops on the subject of protecting the privacy of human subjects. He has been the Principal Investigator on over 120 Applied Research projects for a variety of government agencies and university research centers. He is the primary author of several articles on survey research methodology that have been published in Social Insight and the Journal of Applied Sociology. He has previously served as Vice President and Program Chair for the Society for Applied Sociology (SAS) in 2002-2003, Vice President Elect for SAS in 2001-2002 and as a member of the SAS Board of Directors from 2000-2001. From 1998 to 2001, he chaired the Pacific Sociological Association's (PSA) Committee on Practice, Applied, and Clinical Sociology and in 1997-1998, he was Chair of PSA's Committee on the Status of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Persons in Sociology. Paul received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Washington State University in Pullman, WA, his M.A. in Sociology from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and his B.A. in Sociology from Indiana University, Bloomington.
Contact Paul |
Mollyann Brodie -Student Paper Competition Chair Mollyann Brodie, is Vice President, Director of Public Opinion and Media Research of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Currently, she directs the Foundation's public opinion survey efforts including a variety of public knowledge and survey related projects and ongoing survey partnerships with the Washington Post, NPR and USA Today. Her research efforts focus on understanding public opinion and knowledge on policy issues, and the role of the media in health policy debates. She also currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research and as chair of the Education Committee for the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR). She previously served on AAPOR's Executive Council as Membership Chair in 2004-2005 and as president of PAPOR in 2002. She received her Ph.D. in Health Policy from Harvard University. Contact Mollyann |
Bob Davis -Membership Chair Bob Davis is President of Davis Research, a second generation family business focusing on web and telephone data collection for public and private industry. Bob's first job in market research came when he was 3 years old working for his mom taping quarters to outgoing mail surveys. Needless to say, he has seen a lot of change in the industry over the last 3 decades. Bob has a particular research interest in the appropriate application of web and multi-modal surveys to help answer research questions. When Bob used to have free time he enjoyed traveling, hiking, cooking, and eating. Now he spends most of his time singing Thomas the Train songs with his 2 year old son Zach and cooking up macaroni and cheese. Bob holds a B.S. in Computer Science from UCSD and Masters in Business Administration from the Anderson School of UCLA.
Contact Bob |
Quin Monson -Councilor-at-Large Quin Monson is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and the Assistant Director of the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at Brigham Young University. He received his PhD from Ohio State University in 2004. His research and teaching are in public opinion; campaigns, elections, and voting behavior; survey research methods; and religion and politics. He co-directs the Utah Colleges Exit Poll, a statewide exit poll conducted every two years since 1982, and the Utah Voter Poll, an Internet panel survey conducted periodically with a random sample of Utah voters. He is the co-editor of several books monographs on congressional and presidential elections and his research has also appeared in academic journals and edited volumes including Public Opinion Quarterly, Political Research Quarterly, Political Analysis, Presidential Studies Quarterly, and the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. He is a Utah native and currently lives in Orem with his wife Kate and three children-Anna, Alex, and Sadie.
Contact Quin |
Susan Pinkus -Councilor-at-Large Susan Pinkus is the director of the Los Angeles Poll. Much of the polling that she has done has been in the political arena - from pre-election polls to exit polling. The Times has conducted exit polls since 1980 and has been the only other news organization that did exit polling other than the consortium of networks. She is on the board of directors of the Roper Center and a trustee on the National Council on Public Polls. She was on the executive council of AAPOR and past-president of PAPOR. She now serves as PAPOR's councilor-at-large. She has written several articles for Public Perspective, Public Opinion Pros, and PS - Political Science and Politics Magazine, a chapter on push polling for the Encyclopedia of Public Opinion and for a book, In Polls and Politics: The Dilemmas of Democracy. She has appeared on numerous TV and radio talk shows and has been a guest lecturer at USC, Loyola Marymount University and Claremont College, among others. Under her direction, the polling unit won awards for its Jewish-American, Israeli-Jewish polls and a Chinese American poll. Contact Susan |
| Anthony Salvanto -Councilor-at-Large - Contact Anthony |
| Richard Rands -Past President - Contact Richard |