Raphael Nishimura

Raphael Nishimura

      Statistician & Survey methodologist

Hello, world!
Welcome to my personal website! Here you will find some information about my research interests, my contact information and, why not, a little bit of what makes me unique, just like you and everyone else. Thank you for stopping by!

About me
I'm Director of Sampling Operations at the Survey Research Operations in the Survey Research Center at the Institute for Social Research from the University of Michigan.
I have PhD in Survey Methodology from the Michigan Program in Survey Methodology and a Bachelors degree in Statistics from the Institute of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Sao Paulo.

Research interests
My research interests are survey sampling, responsive designs and nonresponse adjustments (weighting and multiple imputation).
In particular, I am interested in methods that mitigate survey nonresponse during data collection using different approaches, such as responsive design and multiple imputation models for nonignorable missing data.
My dissertation topic was about the use of substitution of nonresponding units in probability-based samples.

The fascinating thing about statistics is that it is applied almost everywhere! As a statistician, my applied interests are public opinion, elections polling and behavior, public policy, market research, mental health and epidemiology.

I also love teaching, especially introductory and fundamentals courses in statistics and any course in survey sampling and methodology. I'm eager to use new pedagogical methods and technology as a way to enhance students learning experience. Particularly, I'm interested in statistical and survey methodology education.

Personal interests
Once upon a time, I was doing some triathlons (HIM PR: 5:54:17, Ironman 70.3 Steelhead, Benton Harbor, MI, 2014) and long-distance races (Marathon PR: 3:34:28, Ann Arbor Marathon, Ann Arbor, MI, 2014), hoping to get back into that soon. I am a frequent moviegoer. I would like to say I am a cinephile, but there are so many classics I have yet to see ("The Godfather" trilogy, for instance...). Call me a nerd, but I love reading about history of mathematics/statistics and pop-sciences, and playing board games with friends (Catan, anyone?).

Contact
E-mail: raphaeln at umich dot edu
Curriculum Vitae