WSU Press Publishes Memoir of Famed Survey Methodologist Don Dillman
A memoir of how a rural Iowa farm boy unintentionally became a renowned survey methodologist whose research changed how surveys are conducted is a new release from WSU Press.

“You Have Been Randomly Selected: A Life Dedicated to Turning Research Findings into Practical Applications” is the story of WSU Regents Professor of Sociology Don Dillman, who describes the influence of random selection in his academic career and his life. Seemingly random circumstances eventually led Dillman from his childhood home to his pivotal work on the WSU campus and with the U.S. Census Bureau.
Dillman’s influence on the day-to-day design of data collection protocols and data collection measurement devices is fundamental. He spent much of his nearly 60 years at WSU addressing whether the rate of participation in surveys could be increased. He also sought research designs that improve the quality of collected information, not just in a single instance, but across a wide variety of situations.
He has shared his research in almost 300 articles and numerous books, and his work has been cited nearly 100,000 times. He was honored by multiple professional associations and is one of very few academics to receive the Roger Herriot Award for Innovation in Federal Statistics.
“My career was not influenced by the convergence of influences on fulfilling a particular life goal. Rather it was making decisions that were contingent on unexpected influences that kept happening,” Dillman said. “Chance encounters and connections resulted in going from one set of research and applications to another in unexpected ways throughout my career.”
Some scholars label the sample survey—the idea that small, randomly selected, well-designed samples can provide accurate estimates of large population attributes—as the most important social sciences invention of the 20th century. Dillman’s findings raised the standards of evidence in the field and changed how researchers conduct thousands of essential surveys throughout the world.

Readers of “You Have Been Randomly Selected” will also learn how Dillman embraced change throughout his life, even through challenging times. An early bout with polio kept him indoors instead of outside on his family’s farm. Relationships he enjoyed as a child in rural communities later shaped his theoretical approach to survey participation. Exposure to Iowa State University Research Extension agents prompted an interest in practical research. Key experiences in college and graduate school piqued thoughts about how he could contribute to the world.
A student strike a few months after Dillman started as a WSU assistant professor in 1969 brought classroom instruction to a halt and prompted a need to conduct a telephone survey of students. Dillman received funding to set up the Public Opinion Laboratory, one of the first university-based telephone survey labs. It later became the Social and Economic Sciences Research Center, where Dillman served as director (1985–1996) and then deputy director for research and development (1996–2024). He helped the center to bring in millions of dollars in research grants to WSU.
On June 14, Dillman passed away after a yearlong battle with acute myeloid leukemia. According to his obituary, Dillman was most proud of the many graduate students he trained and advised over his career. He believed he learned as much from them as they did from him.
“The satisfaction he got from his work was not in the discovery itself, but in seeing ideas put into practice by colleagues and professionals around the world,” the obituary noted. “Don strongly believed that the mission of a land-grant university like WSU is to share new knowledge through outreach to the community, a mission he lived his whole career.”