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Miron Straf

Affiliated Faculty, School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA)
Miron Straf
900 N. Glebe Rd
Arlington, VA 22203
  • Ph.D., 1969, Statistics, The University of Chicago.
  • M.S., 1965, Mathematics, Carnegie Mellon University.  
  • B.S., 1964, Mathematics, Carnegie Mellon University.
  • Statistics, theoretical and applied
  • Evidence-based policymaking
  • Evidence for policy decisions
  • “Weak convergence of stochastic processes with several parameters,” Proceedings of the Sixth Berkeley Symposium on Mathematical Statistics and Probability, 1972
  • “Ultraviolet radiation as a cause of cancer” (with E. L. Scott), Origins of Human Cancer, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1977
  • “Revenue allocation by regression: National Health Service appropriations for teaching hospitals,” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 1981
  • “Lexical storage and retrieval: A developing skill?” (with Jean Aitchison), Linguistics, 1981
  • “Risk assessment in environmental decision making,” Proceedings of the Sixth Symposium on Statistics and the Environment, The American Statistician, 1982
  • Cognitive Aspects of Survey Methodology (with Thomas B. Jabine, Judith Tanur, and Roger Tourangeau, co-eds.), National Academy Press, 1984
  • Sharing Research Data (with Stephen E. Fienberg and Margaret E. Martin, co-eds.), National Academy Press, 1985
  • The Future of Meta-Analysis (with Kenneth W. Wachter, co-ed.), Russell Sage Foundation, 1990
  • Principles and Practices for a Federal Statistical Agency (with Margaret E. Martin, co-ed.), National Academy Press, 1993.  Second edition in 2001, third edition in 2005, fourth edition in 2009 (with Margaret E. Martin and Constance F. Citro, co-eds.), fifth edition in 2013 (with Constance F. Citro, co-ed.)
  • “The Committee on National Statistics:  Fostering interactions between statisticians in academia and government” (with Stephen E. Fienberg and Margaret E. Martin), International Statistical Review, 1995
  • “Understanding and evaluating statistical evidence in litigation” (with Stephen E. Fienberg and Samuel Krislov), Jurimetrics, 1995
  • “Government statistics,” entry in The International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, First Edition, Pergamon Press, 2001, Second Edition, Elsevier, 2015
  • “Policy information,” entry in The International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, Pergamon Press, 2001
  • “Information and Statistical Data: A Distinction with a Difference” (with Norman M. Bradburn), The Eleventh Morris Hansen Lecture, Journal of Official Statistics, 2003
  • “Fostering trust to motivate responses:  It’s not just a matter of confidentiality,” Chance, 2004
  • Using Science as Evidence in Public Policy (with Kenneth Prewitt and Thomas A. Schwandt, co-eds.), National Academies Press, 2012
  • Furthering America’s Research Enterprise (with Richard F. Celeste and Ann Griswold, co-eds.), National Academies Press, 2014

The role of program evaluation in evidence-based policymaking

  • The use of statistics and behavioral and social science research in public policy; national statistics and the federal statistical system; national research and innovation systems.