Nancy Burns, then co-principal investigator of the ISR National Election Studies and a political scientist specializing in gender, race, political participation, public opinion, and intergovernmental relations, became the first woman to lead an ISR center.

James Jackson, a social psychologist, previously had directed ISR’s Research Center for Group Dynamics; the Program for Research on Black Americans, which he founded; and the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies. Jackson is principal investigator of the National Survey of American Life and the Family Survey across Generations and Nations, and the National Study of Ethnic Pluralism and Politics, extensive social, political, economic, and mental and physical health studies of the African American and Caribbean populations.