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NORC at the University Chicago

Ilana M Ventura

Senior Research Methodologist
Methodology & Quantitative Social Sciences
Ilana specializes in research design, survey methodology, and measurement, with a focus on families and migrant communities.

Ilana is a senior research methodologist in the Methodology & Quantitative Social Sciences department at NORC. She specializes in questionnaire design, testing, mixed-mode and multi-method data collection, and data analysis and data dissemination, as well as studies of Latino, immigrant, and other hard-to-reach populations. Ilana’s substantive research studies families, wealth, labor, and housing, while her methodological research focuses on how to improve measures of self-reported demographic and economic information across survey modes. She has a decade of experience in survey research methods, with training as a demographer and sociologist.

Since joining NORC in 2014, Ilana has worked as methodologist on studies such as the National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE), the General Social Survey (GSS), the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 and 1979 (NLSY), the National Domestic Workers Alliance Labs Methodology Review, the National Immunization Study (NIS), and USAID El Salvador. She has also led methodological research for the AmeriSpeak Latino panel and performed limited English proficiency (LEP) research for the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS).

Ilana has taught sociology courses at the University of Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as methods-based short courses for the American Association for Public Opinion Research and for various clients. She has presented her work at conferences including the American Association for Public Opinion Research, the Population Association of America, and the American Sociological Association, as well as in invited talks at various universities. Ilana’s research has appeared in the International Migration Review, Royal Statistical Society Series A, Survey Practice, RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, Sociological Science, Discover Social Science and Health, and in the JSM Proceedings Survey Research Methods Section.

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Expertise

Education

PhD

University of Chicago

MA

University of Chicago

BA

Amherst College

Honors & Awards

OPRE Secondary Data Analysis Grant No: 90YE0332 | 2025-2026

Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation and HHS Administration for Children and Families

James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility Dissertation Award in The Social Sciences | 2024

University of Chicago

Targeted Investment & Strategic Initiative | 2023, 2024

NORC at the University of Chicago

T32 Predoctoral Fellowship | 2021

National Institute on Aging

Henderson Research Grant | 2021

University of Chicago

Allison Davis Research Award | 2020

University of Chicago

Employee Recognition Award | 2015

NORC at the University of Chicago

Idea Lab Awards | 2015

NORC at the University of Chicago

Project Contributions

2024 National Survey of Early Care and Education

Examining early care and education after major disruption

Client:

Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation in the Department of Health and Human Services

National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979

One of the nation’s preeminent surveys of labor force participation from teen years to retirement

Client:

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997

A new, younger cohort of the nation’s preeminent survey of labor force participation from teen years to retirement

Client:

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

The General Social Survey

The most rigorous, widely used data on the attitudes, opinions, and behaviors of the American public

Client:

The National Science Foundation

Publications

Research Library & Findings