Tiffany Waits

Tiffany Waits is an expert in quantitative and qualitative data collection, managing and overseeing large multimode data collection efforts, focus groups and interviews, instrument design, interviewer training, and site observations.

Since joining Mathematica in 2004, Waits has worked on a range of projects spanning education, health, early childhood, youth development, sexual health, and disability. She is currently the survey director for the Sexual Risk Avoidance Education National Evaluation for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, overseeing multiple surveys, interviews, and focus group data collections. She is also the survey director for the Statewide Family Engagement Centers project for the U.S. Department of Education, where she led the collection of both survey and interview data, conducted analysis, and developed a report of findings.

Waits’ past project roles include survey director for the National Longitudinal Transition Study, which examined the transitions of middle and high school students with and without disabilities from school into adult life; and survey director for the Opioid Treatment Program Survey, directing a multimode data collection administration conducted with about 1,200 opioid treatment providers. Waits was the survey director for the National Title I Study of Implementation and Outcomes: Early Childhood Language Development project, overseeing classroom observation and child assessment data collection and other data collection and survey activities. She also served as survey director for the National Study of Charter Management Organization (CMO) Effectiveness, and was responsible for recruiting CMOs, districts, and schools into the study, as well as overseeing school lotteries.

Before joining Mathematica, Waits was a survey manager at Westat. Her research has been published in Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference of Establishment Surveys and The Quality and Quantity of Contact: African-Americans and Whites on College Campuses. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from American University.