President
Ashley Kirzinger
Ashley Kirzinger, Ph.D., is Director of Survey Methodology and Associate Director of Public Opinion and Survey Research at KFF. She has been serving on PAPOR Council for the past several years as Councilor-at-Large and is excited to move into this new position. She previously served as AAPOR Standards Chair, co-chair of the AAPOR Transparency Initiative, and the 2020 AAPOR Code Review Committee. As the only PAPOR member in Maine, Ashley frequently mutters “west coast, best coast” as she walks around town with her wife and dogs.
Vice President / President-Elect
Meagan Doll
Meagan Doll Meagan Doll is a research associate in the Minnesota Journalism Center at the Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. She is also affiliated with the Center for Journalism, Media, and Democracy at the University of Washington, where she is a postdoctoral fellow. Her work explores media attitudes and perceptions of news, with specific interest in global media trust. Meagan completed her Ph.D. and M.A. in Communication at the University of Washington and received her B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication.
Membership Chair
Rico Neumann
Rico Neumann is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at Free University of Berlin. He is also affiliated with the WZB Center for Civil Society Research (Germany) as a research fellow. His work examines the causes, consequences and solutions to affective polarization, with focus on the communication of civil society groups. More broadly, his research interests lie at the intersection of public opinion, political communication, and intergroup phenomena, and he teaches classes in empirical research methods and media effects. His work has appeared in journals such as Mass Communication and Society, Social Indicators Research, and International Journal of Public Opinion Research. He holds a B.A. from the University of Leipzig (Germany), an M.A. from the University of Arizona, and a Ph.D. from the University of Washington. Rico has served on PAPOR Council since 2020, including as Student Representative (2020), President (2022) and Membership Chair (2024). When not absorbed by survey data and research projects, he enjoys traveling, hiking, and spending time with his wife and daughter.
Conference Chair
Samantha Finley
Samantha Finley is a senior researcher within the Survey and Applied Research Section at the California State Employment Development Department. She focuses on survey design and implementation for online and phone surveys, as well as qualitative and quantitative research methods. Samantha holds a Master’s in Sociology from Cal Poly Humboldt and earned her Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from UC Riverside. Samantha is from Joshua Tree, but now lives in the Sacramento area with her husband and daughter.
Councilor-at-Large, Webmaster
Jenny Benz
Jenny Benz is vice president of Public Affairs & Media Research at NORC at the University of Chicago and deputy director of The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. She currently serves as the project director for AP VoteCast and oversees NORC’s polling relationships with media outlets including AP, Wall Street Journal, the LA Times, and Washington Post. Jenny is a political scientist whose research focuses on public opinion and elections, survey methodology, and media attitudes. She has managed and conducted survey research on a variety of topics including the public’s priorities and attitudes toward government, trust in news and attitudes toward journalism, and race and ethnicity. Jenny is active with the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), PAPOR, and NEAAPOR. She has served as the co-chair of the AAPOR Transparency Initiative, membership chair for PAPOR, and events chair for NEAAPOR, as well as serving on several committees. Jenny has lived on the Big Island in Hawaii since 2017.
Councilor-at-Large, Communications Chair
Yioryos Nardis
Yioryos Nardis is a UX Researcher at HubSpot. Before joining HubSpot, Yioryos spent several years at Meta running large-scale international surveys. Before that he worked as a Senior Researcher at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research, where he conducted methodological research for the American National Election Studies and the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. Yioryos received a Ph.D. in Political Communication from the University of Michigan and holds a Graduate Certificate in Survey Methodology from the University of Michigan’s Program in Survey and Data Science. He lives in San Francisco.
Councilor-at-Large, Student Representative
Zhaowen Guo
Zhaowen Guo is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Better Government Lab, McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University. Her research explores how information and technology shape public opinion, political behavior, and government accountability through survey experiments, causal inference, and computational social science.
Past-President
Danell Brewster
Danell Brewster leads the Survey and Applied Research Section at the California State Employment Development Department. Danell oversees and conducts surveys and other research projects focused on customer needs and program outcomes. Danell holds a Master of Public Policy and Administration degree, a post graduate Certificate of Collaborative Governance, and a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from Sacramento State
Treasurer
Benn Messer
Benn Messer is a survey statistician with the Energy Information Administration (EIA) in the US Department of Energy. He is involved in protesting the changes and improvements to EIA’s energy surveys. He spent nearly nine years with Research Into Action and Opinion Dynamics doing consulting, evaluation, market research, and fielding dozens of surveys in the energy sector. Before that, Benn earned a PhD in Sociology from Washington State University, where he studied survey methods under Dr. Don Dillman. He also served on the PAPOR council from 2011 to 2018 and has been an active member of AAPOR since 2009. Benn lives in Portland, OR with his wife, two dogs, and a cat, where they enjoy lots of outdoor recreation, live music, and good food.
Secretary
Cameron Raynor
Cameron Raynor is the founder and principal of RA2/EveryAnswer. Cameron’s work focuses on reaching survey respondents in small geographic areas and hard-to-reach populations. He has led projects across North America, the UK, Australia, and beyond. Previously, Cameron worked as a digital campaign consultant helping public affairs organizations understand their audiences, manage their data and optimize their digital advertising.
Associate Conference Chair
Laura Wagstaff
Laura Wagstaff, MPH is a project manager and health services researcher with a decade of experience in public health and health communication science. She supports qualitative and quantitative research projects for state and federal clients. She is skilled in multimode data collection, including managing questionnaire development, data collection systems, and analysis and reporting. Prior to joining NORC, Laura designed and executed internal and external communications strategies for federal health agencies, international non-profits, academic institutions, and private corporations.
Student Paper Competition Chair
Gilad Amitai
Gilad Amitai is a Product Manager at Electronic Arts focusing on brand partnerships. Before that, he was a Research Scientist at SurveyMonkey using cutting-edge methodology on public opinion data for business and media partners. Prior to joining EA, he worked on mobile games at 2K. Gilad holds a Master’s in Statistical Science from Duke University where his research focused on differential privacy, and a Bachelor’s of Science in Statistics from the University of Washington, Seattle, where he used surveys in analyzing the makeup of social networks. He previously presented his work on adaptive head-to-head ranking methods at PAPOR and the national AAPOR conference.
Councilor-at-Large, Short Course Chair
Bob Davis
Bob Davis is the president and owner of the California-based multi-mode data collection research company, Davis Research. Davis Research is a GSA certified small business with experience delivering 508 compliant web surveys and phone surveys for various state and federal agencies. When he is not geeking out on public opinion research, Bob enjoys parenting, traveling, reading, hiking, and cooking. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from UC San Diego and Masters in Business Administration from the Anderson School of UCLA.
Councilor-at-Large, Sponsorship Chair
Paul Johnson
Paul Johnson graduated from BYU with an M.S. in Statistics. He spent 15 years working in market research with a wide variety of experience, including phone surveys, online surveys, and passively collected data. He loves finding innovative ways to combine behavioral and survey data with a specialty in discrete choice models. He has volunteered and served on committees in AAPOR at both the local and regional level. His research efforts have been featured at AAPOR, ESOMAR, ARF, Insights Association, and Sawtooth conferences. He is most proud of his wife and two sons and loves playing games with them.
Councilor-at-Large, Special Events Chair
Christian Schimpf
Christian Schimpf, Ph.D. is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of British Columbia’s Behavioral Public Policy Lab. Christian conducts research to improve access to public services, using a mixture of surveys, survey experiments, and field experiments. His work has been published in the American Political Science Review and the British Journal of Political Science, among others. Before joining the Behavioral Public Policy Lab, Christian worked as a Research Advisor at the City of Edmonton, leveraging his research expertise and methodological expertise to help policymakers navigate some of the trickiest issues in recent years. Christian received a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Mannheim (Germany).