Special Recognition honors went to Sherry L. Martin, Ph.D., who currently serves as a senior analyst for the State Department’s Office of Opinion Research, Bureau of Intelligence Research.
She is recognized as a role model for colleagues at every level and a government-wide recognized expert on the use of social science in foreign policy.
In government, she has used innovative research techniques to help answer a question of growing importance to senior policymakers: How are publics across East and Southeast Asia responding to China’s expanding economic and strategic presence in the region?
Her analysis on this topic has reached top-level officials at the State Department, the White House, and the National Security Council, providing a deep and nuanced understanding of the climate of foreign public opinion.
One of Martin’s assets is her ability to convey insights from mathematical and statistical analyses of complex social issues to disparate audiences in a way that is useful. For example, she wrote a book on gender and politics in Japan, which was published by Cornell University Press in 2011.
Dr. Martin is dedicated to data-informed decision making at the State Department, as well as inspiring team members at every level of the department to think seriously about issues of diversity in the federal government.
