WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 — The Pew Research Center, an independent, non-partisan “fact tank” that generates information on important issues and trends, today announced the hiring of two new senior staff members, Jodie T. Allen and Jeffrey S. Passel.
Allen will serve as senior editor at the Center. She comes to the position from U.S. News &World Report, where she was a managing editor and an author of a column on the political economy. Prior to joining U.S. News, Allen served as Washington bureau chief for Slate magazine and editor of The Washington Post “Outlook” section. Allen also spent part of her career as a policy analyst, focusing on demographic and political trends affecting tax and transfer payment programs. Her initial Pew assignment will be to serve as editor of the Pew Global Attitudes Project, one of six projects that make up the new center. She will help shape an ongoing series of public opinion surveys that track world opinion on issues ranging from the image of the U.S. to terrorism to trade to people’s assessments of their own lives.
Passel will become a senior research associate at the Pew Hispanic Center. A nationally known expert on immigration to the United States and the demography racial and ethnic groups, he comes to the center from the Urban Institute, where he served as principal research associate at the Institute’s Labor, Human Services and Population Center. Passel has authored numerous studies on immigrant populations in America, focusing on such topics as undocumented immigration, the economic and fiscal impact of the foreign born, and the impact of welfare reform on immigrant populations. At Pew, Passel will be working with a team of researchers to track demographic trends among Hispanics, the nation’s largest and fastest- growing minority group. He will continue and expand his previous research in the area.
“The Center draws on the expertise of social scientists and journalists to generate surveys, research and news coverage that help policy makers and the general public better understand the major issues of the day,” said Pew Research Center President Andrew Kohut. “Jeffrey and Jodie bring a wealth of expertise that will not only strengthen our existing programs on global public opinion and Hispanic issues, but will also help us identify subject areas for new research programs.”
Both Allen and Passel will start to work at the center on January 18. Established in 2004 as an independent subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, a Philadelphia-based public charity, the new center brings under one roof six previously unconnected Pew- sponsored research and information programs. They are the Pew Research Center for the People the Press, Stateline.org, the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the Pew Hispanic Center and the Pew Global Attitudes Project.
The Center and its component projects never take a position on any partisan or public policy issue; rather, they seek to generate facts, data and analysis that help inform the public policy debate. Over the years, the projects have produced hundreds of reports and surveys on a broad range of major national and international issues.
