It’s time to elect the next MAPOR council members to begin roles in November 2025. We currently have three positions open for election: Vice-President/President-Elect, Associate Conference Chair, and Associate Secretary-Treasurer. After roughly a month of open nominations, we’ve got some wonderful candidates running this year. Their bios are below.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to president@mapor.org.
Vice-President/President-Elect
Paul DiPerna | EdChoice
Paul DiPerna is Vice President of Research and Innovation at EdChoice, where he has led the research program since 2010. Paul’s work centers on surveys and polling about American K–12 education and schooling. He directs the monthly EdChoice Public Opinion Tracker and oversees the annual Schooling in America Survey. Previously, Paul worked for six years at the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution. He received his MA in Political Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and his BA in Political Science at the University of Dayton.
Paul currently serves as an at-large member on MAPOR’s Executive Council and for the last three years he has contributed to the Awards, Grants, and Support Committee. During this time he has also co-led MAPOR’s Student Fellowship program and travel grant efforts. Paul has been a member of MAPOR since 2014 and AAPOR since 2009.
Associate Conference Chair
Erik Nisbet, Ph.D. | Northwestern University
Erik Nisbet is the Owen L. Coon Professor of Policy Analysis & Communication at Northwestern University and Director of the Center for Communication & Public Policy. His research examines public opinion and political behavior in the United States and abroad, employing survey, experimental, and computational methods. He received his Ph.D. in Communication from Cornell University, after working for seven years in market research and six years at the Cornell Survey Research Center.
Erik’s involvement with MAPOR began as a first-year master’s student at Cornell in 2002, with his co-authored paper participating in the MAPOR Fellows Student Paper Competition. Since then, he has remained an active participant in the conference as both a graduate student and faculty member. Over the past year, he has served on the MAPOR Executive Council contributing to the Online Learning Committee and currently mentors a MAPOR Student Fellow.
In addition to MAPOR, Erik is active in the World Association of Public Opinion Research, recently editing a special issue of the International Journal of Public Opinion Research and delivered the keynote lecture at the 2025 WAPOR Annual meeting in St. Louis. He looks forward to continuing his service to MAPOR as Associate Conference Chair.
Miranda Kaye, Ph.D. | University of Chicago
Miranda Kaye is the Director of the Survey Lab at the University of Chicago. Prior to joining the Survey Lab, she served as the Director of the Survey Research Center at the Pennsylvania State University where she began her AAPOR and PANJPOR memberships. She has served as the chair of a number of academic committees as well as of the State College Friends School Board of Trustees. Since coming to Chicago, she is an active member of MAPOR.
Miranda completed her B.S. in Human Development at Cornell University, her M.S. in Exercise Science at Arizona State University, and her Ph.D. in Kinesiology at the Pennsylvania State University. She has over 15 years of experience in all phases of survey research, including teaching undergraduate and graduate research methods and statistics classes, specializing in projects involving large-scale, multi-modal, longitudinal, field, mixed-methods, and RDD data collection, and providing leadership to academic research centers. In her own research, she applies multivariate methods to the study of human development, health, and well-being with a focus on scale development, measurement, and program evaluation. She loves examining metadata and considering ways to improve methodology as well as supporting the varied projects and methodical needs of researchers.
Associate Secretary-Treasurer
Caroline Smith | Morning Consult
Caroline Smith is the Director of Content Research at Morning Consult. She works on a wide variety of polling, including politics, economics, and market research for financial services, travel, and retail industries. Prior to Morning Consult, she worked at N.O.R.C. in the Public Affairs and media research department. Caroline received her B.A. in Political Science and International Relations and her Master’s degree in Political Science from Loyola University Chicago, and she began attending the MAPOR conference in 2018. Caroline is currently a member-at-large on the Executive Council and she looks forward to continuing her service to MAPOR as Associate Secretary-Treasurer.
Nadia Assad | University of Wisconsin Survey Center
Nadia Assad is a Senior Project Director at the University of Wisconsin Survey Center (UWSC), where she has been a key member of the project directing staff since 2014. She brings extensive experience in survey research administration and methodology.
Nadia began her career in survey research as a telephone interviewer and quickly advanced through roles including shift leader and project director. Her experience with multiple areas of survey operations at the UWSC has made her a key member of the Center’s team. In addition to overseeing complex web, mail, and mixed-mode survey projects, she also provides extensive methodological guidance to clients and colleagues on questionnaire design and layout.
Nadia currently serves as the study director for a state-level panel at UWSC, further demonstrating her expertise in managing large-scale, longitudinal research initiatives. Through her work as a survey methodologist, Nadia has contributed to scholarly publications in journals including Public Opinion Quarterly and Field Methods. Nadia holds a Master’s degree in Sociology from UW–Madison and has taught Sociology courses at both UW–Madison and Madison College. Prior to her work in the U.S., she contributed to internationally funded research projects by organizations such as the World Bank and United Nations Development Program.
Since 2023, Nadia has been an enthusiastic participant in MAPOR’s annual conference, presenting papers at both events. She deeply values the organization’s commitment to methodological rigor and innovation, and its welcoming, intellectually vibrant community that supports professionals at every stage of their careers. Her engagement with the conference has been both professionally enriching and personally inspiring.
As a nominee for Associate Secretary-Treasurer, Nadia brings a strong foundation in research leadership, a commitment to methodological excellence, and a collaborative spirit. She is excited about the opportunity to support MAPOR’s mission and contribute to its continued success.
