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Katie Johnson

Katie is an expert in research design and analytics and finds ways to strengthen data quality and improve productivity.

Katie is a research methodologist in the Methodology & Quantitative Social Sciences department at NORC. Her work spans the full survey lifecycle—designing questionnaires, supporting sampling and contact mode strategies, monitoring data quality, analyzing results, and sharing findings with diverse audiences. She has worked on numerous national surveys and works on the NORC National Frame to develop tools to improve coverage for NORC’s probability-based studies. In all her work, she promotes reproducible research practices, statistical programming standards, and automated reporting to ensure transparency and collaboration across projects.

Katie has contributed to several high-impact projects at NORC, including the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth 1979 and 1997 cohorts, where she oversees methodological interventions to improve retention and data quality. This includes conducting experiments with randomized assignments to see how contacting strategies impact response rates. She has also been integral to the Entrepreneurship in the Population (EPOP) Survey where she assisted in analysis and reporting, including producing national estimates of entrepreneurial activity in the United States. She also played a key role in EPOP Indiana by analyzing data, creating visualizations, writing project deliverables, and coordinating with clients to share findings and guide weighting and analytic decisions.

Before joining NORC, Katie supervised a large-scale hiring audit study examining gender and racial discrimination in employment, leading data collection and quality assurance efforts. Her doctoral research explored occupational sex segregation and workers’ access to paid family leave and other family-friendly workplace policies through secondary data analysis and conjoint experiments. She has authored multiple peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, conference presentations, and project reports. 

Education

PhD

Indiana University

MS

Indiana University

MS

Purdue University

BA

University of Texas at Arlington

Project Contributions

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

Entrepreneurship in the Population (EPOP)

Tracking the U.S. population’s experiences with and interest in entrepreneurship and self-employment

Client:

Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

Evaluation of the Vermont All-Payer Accountable Care Organization Model

Evaluating Vermont’s efforts to improve health outcomes and reduce health care spending

Client:

Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation within the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Entrepreneurship in the Population: Indiana (EPOP-IN)

Understanding views and experiences with business ownership and self-employment in Indiana

Client:

Central Indiana Corporate Partnership (CICP)

Publications