The Center for the Study of Economy & Society is delighted to co-sponsor the symposium on “Rationality, Collective Action and Hidden Population” to honor our colleague Douglas Heckathorn–who is beginning a phased retirement next year. The symposium will take place on October 11-12th, 2014 in the Physical Sciences Building 401.

Doug has made distinguished contributions to the social sciences in the course of an active career of research and teaching. Among his most notable accomplishments is the development of an innovative method for collecting data from hidden populations—from injection drug users to jazz musicians. Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS) combines incentivized methods for peer recruitment of respondents with innovative statistical procedures for obtaining unbiased estimates from a non-random sample. RDS is becoming widely used not only by social scientists but also by applied researchers in the fields of epidemiology and public health. Statisticians point to RDS as among the most important innovations in statistical sampling theory in recent decades.

The confirmed guest list for the symposium includes the following: Denise Anthony, Sigmund Lindenberg, Joan Jeffri, Matt Salganik, Richard Swedberg, Chris Cameron, Mary Brinton, Rafael Wittek, and Robert Broadhead. The symposium will begin at 9:00AM on Saturday, October 11th, 2014.

We know that Doug will feel honored by your participation in this event!

Kind regards,
Michael Macy and Victor Nee