John M. Kennedy Achievement Award

John Kennedy served as Director of the Center for Survey Research at Indiana University from 1987 to 2011. He organized meetings of the academic survey center directors at AAPOR meetings for many years before AASRO was formally organized, and was appointed the first Past President of AASRO when the Association was formed. In 2010, he hosted the annual AASRO meeting at Indiana University. AASRO’s annual award for service and leadership to academic survey research is named in John’s honor, and has been given annually to an academic survey research professional since 2012. The criteria for this award include the following:

• meritorious service or help to AASRO or to its member organizations;
• accomplished leadership in public opinion research that promotes the value of survey research, enhances public understanding of survey research, fosters advances in survey research methods as a science, improves delivery of survey services, or otherwise promotes quality in survey and public opinion data collection;
• advancement or innovation in developing or improving the capabilities of an academic survey research organization (for example, improving client interactions, respondent experience, project management, staff training, quality of survey data collection, fiscal or personnel management); or
• promoting or improving the understanding, within their own institutions, of survey research conducted by academic survey research organizations.

AASRO is honored to announce Don Dillman as the (posthumous) recipient of the 2024 John M. Kennedy Achievement Award for his extraordinary contributions to the field of survey research.

2023 Recipient: Heidi Grunwald, Institute for Social Research, Temple University

2022 Recipient: John Stevenson, University of Wisconsin Survey Center, University of Wisconsin Madison

2021 Recipient: Andrew Smith, University of New Hampshire Survey Center, University of New Hampshire

2020 Recipient: Jolene Smyth, Bureau of Sociological Research, University of Nebraska, Lincoln

2019 Recipient: Mary Losch, Center for Social and Behavioral Research, University of Northern Iowa

2018 Recipient: Tim Johnson, Survey Research Laboratory, The University of Illinois Chicago

2017 Recipient: Thomas Guterbock, Center for Survey Research, University of Virginia

2016 Recipient: Ronald Langley, Survey Research Center, University of Kentucky

2015 Recipient: Robert Oldendick, Survey Research Laboratory, University of South Carolina

2014 Recipient: Martha Van Haitsma, University of Chicago Survey Lab

2013 Recipient: John Tarnai, Social & Economic Sciences Research Center, Washington State University

2012 Recipient: John Kennedy, Center for Survey Research, Indiana University

To make a donation to the John M. Kennedy Achievement Award or the John Tarnai Memorial Scholarship, please email AASRO Treasurer, Michelle Rogers, at Michelle_Rogers@brown.edu.