Michael Sinclair is a Senior Fellow in NORC's Center for Excellence in Survey Research. He has more than 24 years of experience designing, leading, and analyzing large-scale surveys in the public and private sector. He joined NORC following his most recent work at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served as deputy director/acting director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in the Office of Justice Programs. Under his leadership, BJS assisted in the advance of the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). His knowledge of the federal arena is informed by his work as the first director of statistical analyses at the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) at the U.S. Department of Labor, where he led several statistical teams across regional offices to assist the compliance officers in their audits of the federal contractor's personnel practices. At the U.S. Census Bureau, Sinclair conducted primary research in collaboration with the Bureau's chief methodologist that included the development of new sampling methods for decennial research studies, and the initial use of sample-based follow-up procedures for decennial nonrespondents, the design of data collection procedures and new analytical methods to measure nonsampling errors, innovative imputation methods, and the assessment of a variety of motivational techniques to improve cooperation in surveys.
Sinclair's private-sector experience took him to positions at the Washington, D.C., law firm of Norris, Tysee, Lampley and Lakis (NTLL); Mathematica Policy Research; Response Analysis Corporation; the University of Pennsylvania Health System; National Analysts, Inc.; and Argonne National Labs. While statistical consultant at Employment Advisory Services, Inc. (EASI), Inc., he was responsible for designing and conducting EEO-based evaluations of the client's compensation and selection systems. At Mathematica Policy Research, Sinclair was senior statistician and served as the designer of the sampling related activities of large scale surveys for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. He also designed and developed sampling procedures and estimation methods for surveys conducted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, Princeton University, and other commercial and academic institutions. Sinclair currently serves as Project Director for the Design and Implementation of the Methodological Planning and Development Support Contract for the Data Linkages Program. The project is focused on identifying, evaluating and testing the feasibility of the linkage of external data sources to the National Children's Study (NCS), a national longitudinal study of environmental influences (including physical, chemical, biological, and psychosocial) on children's health and development. This study is led by the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).