Meet a Participant: Matthew Fritz, Ph.D.

New Growth for this Academic Fellow

When Matthew Fritz, who holds a Ph.D. in Quantitative Research Methodology in Psychology from Arizona State University, was looking for a great opportunity to gain professional experience within the federal statistical system, he found the perfect fit in NCSES. Dr. Fritz, an Associate Professor of Practice in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, remarked, “I have found NCSES to be full of very intelligent, hard-working, and welcoming people. I have also been able to get involved with many ongoing projects at NCSES, while also being able to keep time for my own independent research interests.”  

As a fellow with NCSES, Fritz is part of a data collection team that searches for and analyzes key trends and patterns to visualize data analysis in novel and informative ways. Both under the supervision of his mentor and as part of a team, he helps define specific projects that will advance the center’s ability to generate, document and analyze statistics on the science and engineering enterprise.

Fritz’s current efforts on the congressionally-mandated Science and Engineering Indicators (SEI) report opened his eyes to the importance of NCSES. “My expectation was that NCSES [completed reports] like many academics would complete a research study by creating their own surveys, collecting their own data, analyzing it all, and then writing the report themselves. While some of this occurs, the process is so much bigger and more intensive than that and includes federal contractors, data from other national and international surveys, and multiple levels of review and approval. Understanding how many moving pieces and how much work goes into creating the SEI every two years has really given me a new appreciation for NCSES,” Fritz said.

When asked if he would recommend a research experience at NCSES, Fritz responded, “Definitely! I think there are a lot of opportunities for researchers who want to pursue specific research projects that use NCSES data or those who more generally just want to try something new. I have found NCSES to be very open and receptive to new ideas and they value my experience, expertise, and perspective.”

View the Current Research Opportunities page to apply today!

The NCSES Research Ambassadors Program is funded by NSF and administered through the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE). ORISE is managed for DOE by ORAU.