Resilience Lecture
Guest Speaker: Steven Snell, PhD
Lecture Details
The CfR's Resilience Lecture Series brings the best expert researchers from industry and academia to share on the most pressing topics of our time. All faculty, students, and administration are invited to attend.
Date: Thursday, March 5th, 2026
Time: 3:30 PM
Category: Event
Location:
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Topic: "Collecting High-Quality Human Insights in an AI-Powered World"
About
Steven Snell, PhD, is Head of Research at Rep Data, where he advises research strategy, data quality, and combatting online survey fraud. He previously led the Research Center of Excellence at Goldman Sachs and survey research consultancies at Qualtrics and Duke University, advising hundreds of B2B and B2C, academic, nonprofit, and government clients. Steve's expertise includes questionnaire design, concept and product testing, segmentation, experimental design, brand tracking, and longitudinal research. He holds a PhD in Politics from Princeton University and attained further training in survey methods as a postdoctoral fellow at the Initiative on Survey Methodology at Duke University. Steve is president of the Market Research Council, a longtime member of the American Association for Public Opinion Research and American Political Science Association and represents Rep Data on the advisory board of the University of Georgia’s Masters in Market Research.
Abstract
Want to know what real human think? Don't ask a machine. While the current AI craze heavily promotes synthetic audiences, these tools falter when tracking how real human preferences evolve in response to real-world events. Survey research remains a cornerstone of many industries—giving voice to customers, citizens, and stakeholders. However, survey science is a deceptively complex discipline, and surveys are threatened by respondent inattention, poor questionnaire design, and clumsy interviews. The researcher's ultimate goal is to mitigate these threats and reduce respondent burden by mastering the golden rule of collecting high-quality feedback: "Write the survey you would want to take." When surveys are easy to answer, the resulting data are more valid, and the researcher can be more confident in their accuracy. Furthermore, high-quality data leads to better products, smarter policies, and better services. Valid data also serves as more reliable information to feed developing AI solutions.