Stephanie Eckman

Researcher & Data Scientist

I have a Ph.D. in Statistics & Methodology. I collect high quality data for social science research and model training

Recent & Upcoming Talks

Stephanie Eckman (2025). Human-Centered Data Collection for Quality AI: Lessons from Survey Research.

Project Slides Video

Stephanie Eckman (2025). Use of Synthetic Data in Social Science.

Project Slides

Stephanie Eckman (2025). Keynote: High Quality Training Data for AI Models: Lessons from 20 Years in Surveys.

Project Slides

Stephanie Eckman (2024). The Science of Data Collection: Insights from Surveys can Improve Machine Learning Models.

Project Slides

Stephanie Eckman (2023). Annotation Sensitivity: Training Data Collection Methods Affect Model Performance.

Project Slides Video

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Recent Publications

Stephanie Eckman, Barbara Plank, Frauke Kreuter (2024). Position: Insights from Survey Methodology can Improve Training Data. ICML.

PDF Project DOI

Christoph Kern, Stephanie Eckman, Jacob Beck, Rob Chew, Bolei Ma, Frauke Kreuter (2021). Annotation Sensitivity: Training Data Collection Methods Affect Model Performance. EMNLP.

PDF Project DOI

Stephanie Eckman (2021). Underreporting of Purchases in the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey. JSSAM.

PDF Project DOI

Stephanie Eckman, Achim Koch (2019). Interviewer Invovlement in Sample Selection Shapes the Relationship between Response Rates and Data Quality. POQ.

PDF Project Video DOI

Ruben Bach, Stephanie Eckman (2018). Participating in a panel survey changes respondents’ labour market behaviour. JRSSA.

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Research Projects

Feb 13, 2023

Data Quality, Data Centric AI

Helping data scientists collect more accurate training data, decreasing the cost and time needed to train models

Feb 14, 2023

Coverage & Selection Bias

My research has explored undercoverage bias in surveys around the world

Feb 13, 2023

Innovative Sampling Methods

Alternative sampling approaches which do not depend on up-to-date census data or interviewer involvement

Feb 13, 2023

Role of Incentives in Data Construction

The incentives of those producing data impact the quality of the data

Feb 13, 2023

Passive Data Collection

Data collected without the involvement of the respondent can improve quality

Skills

Writing & Presenting

Statistics & Data Science

Data Collection

Experience

Principal Research Scientist

Amazon

February 2023 – Present Arlington, VA

Researcher and Data Scientist

Social Data Science Center, University of Maryland

February 2023 – Present College Park, MD

Fellow

RTI International

August 2015 – December 2022 Washington, DC

Conducting and publishing research into data quality
Mentoring junior researchers
Providing scientific leadership to the institute

Senior Researcher

Institute for Employment Research

July 2010 – July 2015 Nuremberg, Germany

Conducting and publishing research
Advising on design of IAB surveys

Chair of Sociology (Interim)

University of Mannheim

January 2013 – January 2014 Mannheim, Germany

Conducting and publishing research
Teaching courses in data analysis & research methods
Mentoring students

Methodologist

NORC at the University of Chicago

April 2001 – January 2010 Chicago, IL

Contact

steph@umd.edu