Hansen, Morris (1910–1990)

Morris Hansen was one of the most innovative and influential statisticians of the 20th century. He helped pioneer the work of sampling techniques and the use of the total survey error perspective in designing surveys. He also developed quality control procedures for surveys that helped legitimize the accuracy of survey research. He attended the University of Wyoming (B.S.) and American University (M.S.) and had a long career at the U.S. Census Bureau and Westat, until his death in 1990.

Morris Hansen was born in Thermopolis, Wyoming, in 1910 and spent his formative years in Worland, Wyoming. He earned a B.S. in accounting from the University of Wyoming in 1934. After graduation he started his career at the U.S. Census Bureau in Washington, D.C. Fascinated by statistics in college, Morris started his formal training as a statistician when he arrived in Washington, taking evening courses at the Graduate School of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and eventually earning a master's degree in statistics from American University in 1940.

During his first years at the U.S. Census Bureau, Morris started to establish himself as a highly skilled statistician. At age 26, Morris worked on the sample design for an unemployment survey (which would later evolve into the Current Population Survey) for the federal government, an innovative project because, at the time, the government preferred using census data for their studies. Hansen convinced them that data from a survey could be as reliable, or even more so, as data collected from a census. To accomplish this, Morris introduced the concept of total survey error, which takes into account all of the sources of error in a survey, for example, interviewer effects, questionnaire design, and so forth. The cost savings that result from collecting data from a sample of the population, instead of the entire population, can then be spent on reducing the error from other sources. Although sampling introduces some error into the data, the total survey error is reduced because of a reduction of error from a multitude of sources. Hansen, along with William Hurwitz, would further develop the mathematical theory that underlies sampling methodology.

Hansen retired from the U.S. Census Bureau in 1968. Shortly thereafter he was invited to join Westat, which was, at the time, a small research organization. Morris accepted the invitation and joined Westat as a senior vice president. He would later serve as chairman of the board, after Ed Bryant, a founder of Westat and the preceding chairman, retired. While at Westat, Morris led many important government projects, such as the Consumer Price Index and the National Assessment of Educational Progress. He also developed new techniques for quality control in survey research. Morris did not retire from Westat and continued to work vigorously on statistical and survey methods until his death in 1990. Morris is remembered as an inspiration, a great collaborator, and a passionate teacher by those who worked with and learned from him.