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Jodie Smylie

Pronouns: She/Her

Senior Research Director
Jodie has over 16 years of experience in social science research and survey management.

Jodie is a senior research director in the Economics, Justice & Society department at NORC at the University of Chicago. Jodie serves as project director of Survey Management for the General Social Survey (GSS), the second most frequently cited data source in sociology after the U.S. Census. She also serves as NORC's project director for the National Congregations Study and the National Survey of Religious Leaders. Jodie manages and directs survey activities for both large- and small-scale studies and has expertise in the management of multi-mode and in-person household and establishment surveys.

Her recent studies have addressed topics of public opinion, religious congregations, energy, and trauma-informed community evaluation work. Jodie provides leadership and specialized support through all phases of survey research operations, including project oversight and management, questionnaire design and testing, survey protocol development, staff training, data collection, data quality, data delivery, data analysis, and documentation. Recently, Jodie led the GSS survey team in shifting the survey mode of the traditionally face-to-face GSS questionnaire to a primarily web and phone mode during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jodie is active in presenting methodological research and has presented on a variety of topics at conferences such as American Association for Public Opinion Research, the International Field Directors and Technology Conference, and the European Survey Research Association (ESRA) Conference. She recently co-authored a report on the Study of the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) for the United States Department of Agriculture.

Education

BA

Illinois Wesleyan University