Judith T. Lessler is an American statistician and expert on
survey methodology
Survey methodology is "the study of survey methods".
As a field of applied statistics concentrating on human-research surveys, survey methodology studies the sampling of individual units from a population and associated techniques of survey da ...
, particularly on surveys relating to health and
epidemiology
Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population.
It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evidenc ...
.
Lessler was born in
Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...
, and grew up on a farm in
Iredell County, North Carolina
Iredell County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 186,693. Its county seat is Statesville, and its largest town is Mooresville. The county was formed in 1788, subtracted from Ro ...
. She earned her Ph.D. in 1974 at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...
. Her dissertation, ''A Double Sampling Scheme Model for Eliminating Measurement Process Bias and Estimating Measurement Errors in Surveys'', was jointly supervised by Daniel G. Horvitz and Gary Grove Koch.
She worked as a statistician for
RTI International
Research Triangle Institute, trading as RTI International, is a nonprofit organization headquartered in the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. RTI provides research and technical services. It was founded in 1958 with $500,000 in funding f ...
, the
Battelle Memorial Institute
Battelle Memorial Institute (more widely known as simply Battelle) is a private nonprofit applied science and technology development company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. Battelle is a charitable trust organized as a nonprofit corporation u ...
, and
National Center for Health Statistics
The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) is a U.S. government agency that provides statistical information to guide actions and policies to improve the public health of the American people. It is a unit of the Centers for Disease Control ...
, before retiring to operate a consulting business and run an organic farm on the Alston-DeGraffenried Plantation historic site in
Fellow of the American Statistical Association
Like many other academic professional societies, the American Statistical Association (ASA) uses the title of Fellow of the American Statistical Association as its highest honorary grade of membership. The number of new fellows per year is limited ...
in 1992. She is also a Fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...