Don Dillman may be the most influential social scientist in developing the scientific basis for research methodology over the last 25 years. His Mail and Telephone Surveys: The Total Design Method is a classic of its genre, the first work to provide detailed procedures for conducting surveys by these methods. In the early 1990s, he was senior survey methodologist for the U.S. Bureau of the Census. He also led development of new questionnaire designs and procedures for the 2000 Decennial Census and other government surveys.
Dillman has worked at Washington State University for 33 years. He directed the Social and Economic Sciences Research Center at WSU from 1986 to 1996, is now the deputy director, and was the founding coordinator of the SESRC’s Public Opinion Laboratory, one of the first university-based telephone survey laboratories in the United States.
For these and other accomplishments, Dillman was honored with the Eminent Faculty Award, WSU’s top faculty honor.