Dr. Ananda Mitra, right, with wife Swati in Jungfrau, Switzerland. (Photo, as it appears on www.wfu.edu)

Dr. Ananda Mitra was recently appointed the first director of the Wake Forest University Survey Research Center. He has been the interim director of the center since its inception in September 2003.

At Wake Forest, Dr. Mitra is the associate professor of communication and director of graduate studies in the Department of Communications . He also teaches in the Department of Public Health Sciences.

The center, dedicated to survey methodology, has been created to increase research in the Triad area. Founded on the recommendation of an inter-campus task force, the center will help its clients develop and conduct surveys in this region. Four full-time staff members, a part-time administrative assistant and around 30 part-time interviewers will look at functions such as focus group moderation, questionnaire design, mail data collection, Web-based data collection and data analysis.

The regional study will help researchers at Wake Forest and other local universities to conduct analysis of social, cultural and political trends in the area. The center also aims to conduct an annual survey on education, safety and public services that affect people who live in the Triad area.

Dr. Mitra studied chemical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He went on to do an M.A. in speech communication and theater arts from Wake Forest. He then completed a Ph.D. in speech communication from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and joined the Wake Forest faculty in 1994.

At Wake Forest, Dr. Mitra received several grants, including one to conduct a five-year longitudinal study of the institution’s Technology Initiative, a cross-campus collaboration grant, and a Social and Behavioral Science Research Award.

Prior to joining Wake Forest, Dr. Mitra worked as the head of the sampling section at the Survey Research Laboratory of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

He also taught at Milliken University in Illinois. His research interests include research methodology and the impact of new technologies on society and culture.

Dr. Mitra has written several articles for various journals. He also authored three books, including ‘Television and Popular Culture in India’ (Sage Publications, 1993) and ‘Research Methods in Park, Recreation and Leisure Services’ (Sagamore Publishing, 2000). Apart from teaching, Dr. Mitra is also a consultant to private industry, universities, colleges and local government agencies across the U.S.