Chapter Spotlight: PAPOR

Focusing on student and professional researchers in the Western region of the United States, PAPOR held several in-person and virtual events in 2019. Monitor AAPOR-net for more information on our two premier in-person events of 2020 – the June mini-conference in the Bay Area (where we highlight presentations from the National AAPOR conference) and the PAPOR Annual Conference December 10^th and 11^th in San Francisco.

Here are the highlights of the amazing events PAPOR hosted in 2019:

PAPOR has always desired to increase our student and early career researcher membership, however in 2018 Past President, Bianca DiJulio made this a priority for the Executive Council. Since then PAPOR has held 9 happy hour/social events throughout the region, including events in Los Angeles, Portland, Sacramento, and San Francisco. In addition in January 2020, PAPOR assisted AAPOR in organizing SurveyFest at Stanford University. SurveyFest is a one-day conference aimed at encouraging undergraduate and graduate students to consider careers and graduate studies in the fields of public opinion and survey research.

PAPOR held our annual Mini Conference in June of 2019. This mini conference was held both as a webinar and in-person at the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) in San Francisco. The event was well attended and featured seven presentations summarizing various sessions from the annual AAPOR Conference. Brian Wells (UCLA Center for Health Policy Research) started the day with a presentation on Sampling and Respondent Selection, Dean Bonner (PPIC) followed and presented Attrition and Conditioning in Survey Panels. Rachel Ward (PPIC) presented Advances in Mixed Mode Research, and then Lunna Lopes (KFF) presented The Politics of Health Care. Mariah Evans (University of Nevada, Reno) remotely presented Equality, Wellbeing, and Economic Growth and then Paul Johnson (Dynata) remotely presented Machine Learning for Survey Researchers. Erin Pinkus and Gilad Amitai (SurveyMonkey) wrapped up the day with their presentation SurveyMonkey at AAPOR.

In November, PAPOR offered our annual short course as a webinar. For 2019, the focus was the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the California Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5), which both went into effect January 1, 2020. First, Dr. Stan Stahl focused on helping understand the important question “What must I do to meet the CCPA’s requirement that businesses implement ‘reasonable security measures’?”. Then Stuart Pardau discussed the importance of privacy policies and practices within the organization. The course finished off with a discussion from Stuart about AB 5, which expands the tests used for determining if an Independent Contractor is actually an employee, giving them the right to various worker protections.

To end the year, the 2019 PAPOR Annual Conference was held in San Francisco in December. The conference offered two short courses. The first was “Heartwired Focus Group Moderation: Digging Deeper in Qualitative Research” and was instructed by Amy Simon of Goodwin Simon Strategic Research. The second course was “R for Survey Analysis” and was instructed by Jack Chen of SurveyMonkey. The 2019 conference also included five panels, and a Plenary Event about the 2020 Decennial Census featuring D. Sunshine Hillygus (Duke University), Eric McGhee (PPIC), Arturo Vargas (NALEO), and was moderated by Liz Hamel (KFF).

As always, PAPOR seeks ways to diversify not only its membership but the Executive Council as well. We will continue to work with colleges, universities, government, private, non-profit, and other organizations to accomplish this goal. For more information reach out to our President Jessica Gollaher at [email protected].