About the Contributors

Chapter 1 - Objectives and Challenges of Survey Data Harmonization

Kazimierz M. Slomczynski is Professor of Sociology at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFiS PAN) and Academy Professor of Sociology at the Ohio State University (OSU). He co-directs CONSIRT - the Cross-national Studies: Interdisciplinary Research and Training program at OSU and IFiS PAN.

Irina Tomescu-Dubrow is Professor of Sociology at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN), and director of the Graduate School for Social Research at PAN.

J. Craig Jenkins is Academy Professor of Sociology and Senior Research Scientist at the Mershon Center for International Security at the Ohio State University.

Christof Wolf is President of GESIS Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences and professor for sociology at University Mannheim. He has co-authored several papers and co-edited a number of handbooks in the fields of survey methodology and statistics. Aside of his longstanding interest in survey practice and survey research he works on questions of social stratification and health.

Chapter 2 - The Effects of Data Harmonization on the Survey Research Process

Ranjit K. Singh is a post-doctoral scholar at GESIS, the Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, where he practices, researches, and consults on the harmonization of substantive measurement instruments in surveys. He has a background both in social sciences and psychology. Research interests include measurement quality of survey instruments as well as assessing and improving survey data comparability with harmonization.

Arnim Bleier is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Computational Social Science at GESIS - Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences. His research interests are in the field of Computational Social Science, with an emphasis on Reproducible Research. In collaboration with social scientists, he develops models for the content, structure and dynamics of social phenomena.

Peter Granda is Archivist Emeritus at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan. He maintains a strong interest in international comparative research projects and how data generated from these efforts are archived and made available to the public. He studied the history and cultures of South Asia and spent several years doing archival research in India.

Chapter 3 - Harmonization in the World Value Survey

Kseniya Kizilova, PhD in Sociology, is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Comparative Survey Research (Austria) and Head of Secretariat at the World Values Survey Association (Sweden). Her research focuses on social capital, political culture and political trust, democratization, and political participation. She is a member of the Council of the World Association for Public Opinion Research and an associated researcher at the University of Kharkiv (Ukraine).

Jaime Diez-Medrano is Founding President of JD Systems and Director of the World Values Survey Association's Data archive (Spain). He specializes in telecommunications engineering and has over 20?years of experience in database management software development. Diez-Medrano is actively involved into the data processing and harmonization for a number of large-scale survey research projects such as Afro Barometer, Arab Barometer, Latinobarometro among the others.

Christian Welzel is Professor of Political Culture Research at the Center for the Study of Democracy, Leuphana University (Germany) and Vice-President of the World Values Survey Association WVSA (Sweden). His research focuses on human empowerment, emancipative values, cultural change and democratization. Recipient of multiple large-scale grants, Welzel is the author of more than a hundred-and-fifty scholarly publications and a member of the German Academy of Sciences.

Christian Haerpfer is Research Professor of Political Science at the University of Vienna and Director of the Institute for Comparative Survey Research (Austria). He is President of the World Values Survey Association WVSA (Sweden), Director of the Eurasia Barometer and a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. His research focuses on democratization in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, political trust and regime support, electoral behavior, and political participation.

Chapter 4 - Harmonization in the Afrobarometer

Carolyn Logan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Michigan State University, and currently serves as Director of Analysis with Afrobarometer. She has been with Afrobarometer since 2001, including serving as Deputy Director from 2008-2019 and during the network's expansion from 20 to 36 countries in 2011-2013. Her research interests include the role of traditional authorities in democratic governance, and citizen-versus-subject attitudes among African publics.

Robert Mattes is Professor of Government and Public Policy at the University of Strathclyde, and Honorary Professor at the Institute for Democracy, Citizenship and Public Policy in Africa at the University of Cape Town. He is a co-founder of, and Senior Adviser to, Afrobarometer, a ground-breaking regular survey of public opinion in over 30 African countries (www.afrobarometer.org).

Francis Kibirige is co-founder and Managing Director of Hatchile Consult Ltd., a research company based in Uganda. He joined Afrobarometer in 1999, and currently serves as Network Sampling Specialist and co-leads the Afrobarometer team in Uganda. He studied agricultural engineering at Makerere University and has since received four Afrobarometer fellowships to study political research methodology and statistical modeling at University of Cape Town and the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan.

Chapter 5 - Harmonization in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY)

Elizabeth Cooksey (PhD) is Academy Professor Emeritus at The Ohio State University and a senior researcher at CHRR (Center for Human Resource Research) at The Ohio State University. She has worked with the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data (NLSY) for over 30?years, and has been the Principal Investigator for the NLSY79 Child and Young Adult surveys for the past two decades.

Rosella Gardecki (PhD) is a Research Specialist at CHRR at The Ohio State University. In 1996, she joined CHRR as a data archivist for the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97). She has contributed to questionnaire design for more than 20?years. With her background in economics, she currently leads the team that creates variables for both the NLSY79 and NLSY97 cohorts.

Carole Lunney (MA) is a data analysis consultant living in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. From 2011 to 2020, Carole worked at CHRR at The Ohio State University on the data archivist team for the National Longitudinal Surveys. In that role, she was involved in survey instrument design and testing, statistical programming, writing study documentation, and data user outreach. She has co-authored publications on posttraumatic stress disorder, music cognition, and communication.

Amanda Roose (MA) has been the NLS Project Manager/Documentation Lead at CHRR at The Ohio State University for two decades, with management responsibilities for all aspects of survey administration including design, fielding, data preparation, documentation, and dissemination. She has experience editing academic publications across a range of disciplines.

Chapter 6 - Harmonization in the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) Projects

Stephen Quinlan (PhD, University College Dublin) is Senior Researcher at the GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Mannheim and Project Manager of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) project. His research interests are comparative electoral behavior and social media's impact on politics. His work has appeared in journals such as Information, Communication, and Society, International Journal of Forecasting, Electoral Studies, Party Politics, and The European Political Science Review. E: stephen.quinlan@gesis.org

Christian Schimpf (PhD, University of Mannheim) is a former Data Processing Specialist at the CSES. Previously, he has been Senior Researcher at the University of Alberta and Université du Québec à Montréal. His research interests are comparative electoral behavior and environment/energy policy. His work has appeared in journals such as The American Political Science Review, Environmental Politics, and Political Studies. E: christianhschimpf@gmail.com

Katharina Blinzler (MA, University of Mannheim) is a Data Processing Specialist and Archivist with the CSES Secretariat at the GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Köln. Her research interests are comparative electoral behavior and data harmonization. E: katharina.blinzler@gesis.org

Slaven Zivkovic (PhD, ABD) is a former Data Processing Specialist at the CSES and a PhD candidate at the University of Mainz, Germany. Most recently, he was a Fulbright Fellow at the Florida International...