Data Bank Staff

Data Bank Board Bill Berman, chair Ann Berman Feld Sergio DellaPergola Alice Goldstein Sidney Goldstein Henry Goodman Joseph Hollander Bethamie Horowitz Bruce Phillips Mimi Lieber Richard Rockwell Barbara Rosenthal Ira Sheskin Louis Feldstein, ex-officio

Arnold Dashefsky, Director

Arnie is a professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut in Storrs (UConn), having earned the B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in sociology and also a Bachelor of Hebrew Literature.  A former associate head of UConn’s sociology department, he currently serves as the founding Director of the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life, located in the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. Arnie is also one of the founding members of the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry, created in 1971, serving as its first secretary-treasurer and later, as vice-president and president, as well as editor of its journal, Contemporary Jewry.

In addition, he has served as a consultant to the American Jewish Committee, Commission on Jewish Education of the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford, Jewish Education Association of MetroWest (NJ), Rhode Island Department of Vocational Education Sex Equity Project, and the United Jewish Appeal and is now a senior scholar at the Wilstein Institute of Boston and Los Angeles. He has been a visiting scholar at Stanford University and at George Washington University.

Presently, Arnie serves on the Board of Directors of the Association for Jewish Studies and on its executive committee as secretary-treasurer. He has edited or co-authored six books and numerous articles and papers on a variety of topics in sociology and Jewish studies focusing on Jewish identity, family, ethnicity, emigration, intergroup marriage and is presently completing a book on Jewish charitable giving (with Bernard Lazerwitz) and working on another book on American Jewry in the 21st century (with J. Alan Winter).

Ron Miller, Associate Director

Ron Miller rejoined the Data Bank in October, 2005, almost a decade after he initially joined the Data Bank, working with the late Dr. Egon Mayer at the Graduate Center of CUNY (City University of New York) to move the Data Bank from a tape and cartridge main frame storage system to a portable data format system for data file distribution. Stimulated by his Data Bank tenure, after 25 years of teaching research methods and computer data analysis programs, Ron retired as Associate Professor of Sociology at Brooklyn College, CUNY to dedicate himself to a Jewish data life.

Ron earned his Ph. D. from New York University in 1971 in sociology. His earlier degrees, a M. A, from the University of Michigan 1964 and a B. A. from Brooklyn College 1963, reflected his interest in American history.

In addition to serving as Associate Director of the Data Bank (part-time), Ron Miller continues to serve as Research Director for Ukeles Associates Inc. of New York City. Working with Jack Ukeles, he has been project survey director for many of the Jewish population studies conducted by Ukeles Associates and archived at the Data Bank. These studies include: Atlanta 2006 forthcoming, North Metro Atlanta 2004, San Diego 2003, New York 2002, Phoenix 2002, Pittsburgh 2002, Baltimore 1999, Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley, Denver 1997, and Philadelphia 1996.

Not only is Ron committed to archiving data files for relatively recent Jewish community studies at the Data Bank and salvaging older studies not currently archived, but he has also committed himself and the Data Bank to rapidly expanding the Data Bank's current holdings of PDF copies of research reports - including "historical" studies of Jewish communities, and research articles on the Jewish community by both Jewish organizations and researchers on the North American Jewish community.

Cory Lebson, Assistant Director for Information Technology

Cory maintains the Data Bank website, coordinates the data archiving with the Roper Center, and serves as the primary point of contact with Data Bank end users.

He holds a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Maryland.  He has a M.A. from UConn in sociology.  Arnie served as his graduate advisor during his studies in this program.  His master's thesis, "Challenges to Using the Same Measures of Religiosity for Both Christians and Jews" was based on NJPS 1990 data.  He also has a M.B.A. from UConn, with a focus on management of technology and marketing.

Cory has several publications, including a book chapter in Dana Even Kaplan's Platforms and Prayer Books: Theological and Liturgical Perspectives on Reform Judaism, as well as an article in Contemporary Jewry. He also has presented at a variety of academic conferences.

Marc Maynard, Data Archivist and Director for Technical Services, Roper Center for Public Opinion Research

Currently working toward an M.S. in Information Technology, Marc has been primarily responsible for the development of iPOLL, the Center's question retrieval system and, most recently, directing efforts to upgrade data access services. Marc is an active participant in the International Association of Social Science Information Service and Technology and serves on the Data Documentation Alliance Expert Committee.

Sam Richardson, Graduate Research Assistant

Sam will be working with the Data Bank staff as a research, professional and technical resource.

Sam received his BA in International Relations (Middle East Studies) from the University of Southern California, and holds a M.Div from Denver Seminary in Old Testament. He is currently working towards an MA in Sociology, focusing on identity formation in communities of faith.

Through his own company, Jerusalem Data Services, Sam also provides consulting services to non-profit organizations and private corporations in the area of web-based & database-driven business applications.