A conversation with Joseph Waksberg

Joseph Waksberg was born September 20, 1915, in Kielce, Poland; his family emigrated to the United States in 1921. Soon after graduating from the City University of New York (CUNY) in 1936, he moved to the Washington, D.C. ar ea. He joined the Census Bureau in 1940, and stayed there for 33 years, ret iring in 1973 as the Associate Director for Statistical Methods, Research, and Standards. Joe then joined Westat, a statistical research firm in subur ban Maryland. He has continued to work at Westat for the last 26 years, ser ving as Chairman of the Board of Westat since 1990. From 1967 to 1997, he a lso served as a consultant to CBS and other TV networks for election night predictions. He has served the profession of statistics in many roles and r eceived numerous awards, including the Department of Commerce Gold Medal an d the Roger Herriot Memorial Award from the American Statistical Associatio n. He has been active in the American Statistical Association serving on th e Board of Directors as chairs of both the Survey Research Methods Section and the Social Statistics Section and on a number of committees. He has bee n president of the Washington Statistical Society and is currently an Assoc iate Editor of Survey Methodology.