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President
S. Robert Lichter holds a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University and a B.A., summa cum laude, from the University of Minnesota. He also serves currently as Professor of Communication at George Mason University and President of the Center for Media and Public Affairs. Dr Lichter has also served on the faculties of Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Georgetown, and George Washington Universities.

His most recent books include “The Mediated Presidency” (2005), "The Nightly News Nightmare" (2003); "It Ain't Necessarily So: How Media Remake the Scientific Picture of Reality" (2001); "Peepshow: Media and Politics in an Age of Scandal" (2000); and "Environmental Cancer: A Political Disease?" (1999).

His research has also appeared in such scientific journals as Nature, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and the New England Journal of Medicine; and in many general media outlets, including The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and Christian Science Monitor.

Among his awards are Harvard's Goldsmith Award for Research Excellence and the Solimene Award for Excellence from the New England Medical Writers' Association. Dr. Lichter has been a member of the American Statistics Association and a statistical advisor to Voter News Service. He has testified before Congress on media coverage of scientific issues.

Executive Director
Donald Rieck graduated from Dickinson College and Dickinson College Center for European Studies, Bologna Italy with a B.A. in Political Science. He received a Master of Arts in Political Science and a Master of Business Administration, both from Temple University.  He completed an accelerated international business program for his MBA in Tokyo, Japan. His expertise lies in strategic management and economic analysis. 

Prior to joining CMPA/STATS, Rieck was a senior project manager at Comcast Corporation in Philadelphia for several years. 

Director of Research
Rebecca Goldin holds a Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Mathematics, and a B.A., cum laude from Harvard University. Dr. Goldin did postdoctoral work at University of Maryland before she joined George Mason University, where she is currently an associate professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences. She is a member of the Science Policy Committee of the American Mathematical Society and, in 2008, was invited to join the advisory board of Math for America: DC, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving math education in secondary public schools in the U.S.

She has published numerous research articles in internationally recognized mathematics journals, and regularly speaks at conferences across North America, Europe and Asia. She is the recipient of several awards from the National Science Foundation to support her research in mathematics and education. In 2007 she received the Ruth I. Michler Memorial Prize from the Associaton of Women in Mathematics and spent the fall semester of 2007 at Cornell University on a fellowship. In 2008, Dr. Goldin was one of the winners of George Mason's Emerging Scholar Awards, which recognizes excellence in academic achievement.

Dr. Goldin joined STATS in September, 2004. Her work for STATS has been published in the Washington Post and she has appeared on NBC, CBS, CNN and NPR.

Dr. Goldin's work for STATS is partially supported by the National Science Foundation Grant 0606869. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Senior Fellow
Maia Szalavitz is a journalist who covers health, science and public policy. Her most recent book, co-written with leading child trauma expert Bruce D. Perry, MD, PhD, is The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog and Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook: What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Loss, Love and Healing (Basic, 2007). She is also co-author, with Dr. Joseph Volpicelli, M.D., Ph.D. of the University of Pennsylvania, of Recovery Options: The Complete Guide: How You and Your Loved Ones Can Understand and Treat Alcohol and Other Drug Problems (John S. Wiley, 2000). Her book "Help at Any Cost," an investigation into boot camps and tough love programs, was published by Riverhead Books in February 2006, and helped spur Congressional hearings and a Government Accounting Office investigation into deaths and abuses at such programs

She has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsday, New York Magazine, New Scientist, Newsweek, Elle, Salon, Redbook and other major publications. She has also worked in television - first as Associate Producer and then Segment Producer for PBS' Charlie Rose then on several documentaries including a Barbara Walters' AIDS special for ABC and as Series Researcher and Associate Producer for the PBS documentary series, "Moyers on Addiction: Close to Home." She is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and to 60 Second Science, the blog of Scientific American.

Senior Fellow
Dr. Stephen Rose holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and a doctoral degree in economics from The City University of New York. He is the principal at Rose Economic Consulting and is writing a book on changing social conditions (Mythonomics: Ten Things That You Think That You Know About The Economy That Are Wrong). Previously, Rose served in a number of research and policy positions at The Third Way: A Strategy Center for Progressives, the Department of Labor, National Commission for Employment Policy, Joint Economic Committee, ORC Macro, and the Educational Testing Service.

Dr. Rose has published a series of monographs and articles on the changing state of the middle class, the nature of the new service economy, the effects of international trade on the American economy, earnings and income mobility, the economic gender gap, and the determinants of who attends highly-selective universities. He has written opinion pieces or been cited in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and other mass media outlets. The sixth edition of his Social Stratification in the United States was published by The New Press in 2007.

Editor STATS.org and Senior Fellow
Trevor Butterworth received his BA (Hons) and M.Phil from Trinity College Dublin and did graduate work in philosophy and intellectual history at Georgetown University. He received an M.S. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, where he was awarded the Sevellon Brown Prize for outstanding knowledge of the history of the American press.

Butterworth is a regular contributor to the Financial Times and Bookforum. He has also written for the Washington Post's BookWorld, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Observer, Salon, Forbes.com, Huffington Post, and other publications. He was a commentator for the BBC/WGBH show "The World," and is former editor of the media criticism website NewsWatch.org. He is a contributor to Blackwell's Companion to Modern Irish Culture.

Contributing Editor
Dr. Nirit Weiss received a B.A. from Harvard University, and an M.D. from Yale Medical School. She obtained an M.B.A., and completed her residency training in neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University.  She is a neurosurgeon practicing in New York City. Dr. Weiss has published numerous scientific articles in academic journals, and has written extensively about healthcare economics. 

Advisory Board

Thomas C. Childers
Professor of History
University of Pennsylvania

Wolfgang Donsbach
President
World Association of Opinion Research

Nicholas Eberstadt
Fellow
Center for Population Studies, Harvard University

Neil Gilbert
Professor of Social Welfare
University of California Berkeley

Scott O. Lilienfeld
Professor of Psychology
Emory University

Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann
President, Allensbach Institut fur Demoskopie

Nelson Polsby
Director, Institute of Government Studies
University of California Berkeley

Harrison Pope
Director, Biological Psychiatry Laboratory
Harvard Medical School

Stephen Strauss
Toronto Globe and Mail

Humphrey Taylor
CEO & President
Louis Harris and Associates

James Q. Wilson
Professor of Political Science
UCLA