Joseph Waksberg

Joseph Waksberg’s work helped to increase efficiency and improve the methods and sampling techniques of surveys.

Joseph Waksberg (1915-2006) immigrated to the US from Poland as a child and attended the City University of New York (CUNY) in 1936. After graduating, he joined the Census Bureau in 1940, ultimately retiring as the Associate Director for Statistical Methods, Research, and Standards in 1973. During his time at the Census Bureau, Waksberg also served as a consultant for CBS and other TV networks for election predictions. After his retirement, he joined Westat, a corporation that provides research services to US governmental agencies and became the chairman of the board in 1990. With colleague Warren Mitofsky, he created a method that allowed phone survey conductor to reach those with unlisted as well as listed numbers, a technique that drastically improved representative sampling of the population. He received many awards during his professional career, including the Department of Commerce Gold Medal, and the American Statistical Association Roger Herriot Memorial Award. Joseph Waksberg’s work helped to increase efficiency and improve the methods and sampling techniques of surveys.