Norman M. Bradburn, Ph.D.

Norman Bradburn is the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology, the Harris School, the Graduate School of Business, and the College.

Norman M. Bradburn, the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, serves on the faculties of the Harris School, the Department of Psychology, the Graduate School of Business, and the College. He is a former provost of the University (1984-1989), chairman of the Department of Behavioral Sciences (1973-1979), and associate dean of the Division of the Social Sciences (1971-1973). From 2000-2004, he was the assistant director for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation. Bradburn is currently a senior fellow at the National Opinion Research Center (NORC). Associated with NORC since 1961, he has been director of NORC and president of its Board of Trustees.

A social psychologist, Bradburn has been at the forefront in developing theory and practice in the field of sample survey research. He has focused on psychological well-being and assessing quality of life, particularly through the use of large-scale sample surveys; non-sampling errors in sample surveys; and research on cognitive processes in responses to sample surveys. His book, Thinking About Answers: The Application of Cognitive Process to Survey Methodology (co-authored with Seymour Sudman and Norbert Schwarz; Jossey-Bass, 1996), follows three other publications on the methodology of designing and constructing questionnaires: Polls and Surveys: Understanding What They Tell Us (with Seymour Sudman; Jossey-Bass, 1988); Asking Questions: A Practical Guide to Questionnaire Construction (with Seymour Sudman; Jossey-Bass, 1982; 2nd edition with Brian Wansink, 2004) and Improving Interviewing Method and Questionnaire Design (Jossey-Bass, 1979).

Bradburn serves on the board of directors of the Chapin Hall Center for Children. He was chair of the Committee on National Statistics of the National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences (NRC/NAS) from 1993 to 1998, and is past president of the American Association of Public Opinion Research (1991-1992). Bradburn chaired the NRC/NAS panel to advise the Census Bureau on alternative methods for conducting the 2000 Census. The report, published as Counting People in the Information Age, was presented to the Census Bureau in October 1994. He was a member of the NRC/NAS panel to review the National Assessment of Educational Progress and the panel to assess the 2000 Census. He is currently one of the domain chairs for the Key National Indicators Initiative at the National Academies of Sciences. Bradburn was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994. In 1996, he was named the first Wildenmann Guest Professor at the Zentrum für Umfragen, Methoden und Analysen in Mannheim, Germany.