Sharon Witherspoon

Sharon Fae Witherspoon MBE FAcSS (born 1956)[1] is a British statistician, serving as Head of Policy of the Academy of Social Sciences and the Campaign for Social Science, and as a member of the Review Body on Senior Salaries of the British government.[2] She is also Vice President for Education and Statistical Literacy of the Royal Statistical Society.[3]

Education and career

Witherspoon went to high school in the United States, and earned a degree in sociology at an American university, before her postgraduate study of historical sociology at the London School of Economics.[4][5] She worked for a market research firm before becoming a researcher at Social and Community Planning Research, which later became the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen).[4]

At NatCen, Witherspoon was one of the initial researchers of the British Social Attitudes Survey.[6] She worked for the Nuffield Foundation from 1996 to 2015, and was director of the foundation from 2012 until 2015. She moved to the Academy of Social Sciences in 2016.[2][7][8]

Recognition

Witherspoon is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.[9] She became a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2008. In 2011 she was awarded the President's Medal of the British Academy.[7] In 2015, University College London gave her an honorary doctorate.[9]

Personal life

Witherspoon married one of her collaborators on the British Social Attitudes Survey,[6] statistician Roger Jowell (as his third wife) in 1996; he died in 2011.[10]

References
  1. Birth year from VIAF authority control record and National Library of Australia catalog data, retrieved 2019-08-21
  2. Sharon Witherspoon MBE, UK Government, retrieved 2019-08-21
  3. President and Vice Presidents, The Royal Statistical Society, retrieved 2019-08-21
  4. Stand Out and Be Counted: A guide to maximising your prospects for students studying Social Science and Humanities subjects (PDF), The British Academy, p. 12
  5. Using Quantitative Skills in the Third Sector, The British Academy, 1 May 2013
  6. Dean, Hartley; Taylor-Gooby, Peter (2014), Dependency Culture, Routledge, p. x, ISBN 9781317866961
  7. Sharon Witherspoon, Nuffield Foundation, retrieved 2019-08-21
  8. Mason, Tania (23 June 2015), "Long-serving Nuffield Foundation director departs over strategic differences", Civil Society
  9. Sharon Witherspoon MBE FAcSS, Head of Policy, Academy of Social Sciences, retrieved 2019-08-21
  10. Walker, David (8 January 2012), "Sir Roger Jowell obituary", The Guardian
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