Michael Paul Cohen (born July 1947)Who's Who in America, 70th edition, A. N. Marquis CompanyWho's Who in the World, 33rd Edition, A. N. Marquis Company is an American mathematical statistician known for his contributions to survey methodology, education statistics, and the design of large-scale federal surveys. Cohen is a Principal Statistician at the American Institutes for Research (AIR). He has held research and leadership positions at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the National Center for Education Statistics, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Statistical Consulting LLC, and AIR. His research has addressed topics including the Consumer Price Index, multilevel survey design, Bayesian methods for unequal probability sampling, and applications of statistical methodology in education and transportation. Cohen is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Educational Research Association, the American Statistical Association, the Royal Statistical Society, and the Washington Academy of Sciences, and an elected member of the International Statistical Institute and Sigma Xi.

Education Cohen earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics with honors from the University of California, San Diego. He went on to complete his Ph.D. in mathematics with specialty in mathematical statistics at the University of California, Los Angeles, where his doctoral advisor was Charles Joel Stone. His dissertation was titled Fisher Information and Estimators of Location-Scale Parameters.Mathematics Genealogy Project. Michael Paul Cohen.

Career After completing his doctorate, Cohen joined the Bureau of Labor Statistics (1979–1987), where he contributed to survey methodology and research on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the Consumer Expenditure Survey. With John P. Sommers, he developed methods for estimating cost weights in the CPI that were implemented in the 1987 CPI Revision.Cohen, Michael P., and John P. Sommers. "Evaluation of methods of composite estimation of cost weights for the CPI." In Proceedings of the Section on Business and Economics Statistics, American Statistical Association, 1984. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258829945_Evaluation_of_Methods_of_Composite_Estimation_of_Cost_Weights_for_the_CPI/citation/download

At the National Center for Education Statistics, Cohen did foundational work on the newly established Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and later joined the Statistical Methodology Group that was responsible ensuring the soundness of NCES publications and data products.Peng, Samuel S.; Korb, Roslyn A.; Rose, Joseph; Snyder,Thomas D.; and Cohen, Michael P. (1999) Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS): An Improved System. Report number: ED 441 370A, National Center for Education Statistics. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317036830_Integrated_Postsecondary_Education_Data_System_IPEDS_An_Improved_System#fullTextFileContent [accessed Mar 15 2026].Lori Thurgood, Elizabeth Walter, George Carter, Susan Henn, Gary Huang, Daniel Nooter, Wray Smith, R. William Cash, Sameena Salvucci, Marilyn Seastrom, Tai Phan, and Michael Cohen (2003). NCES Handbook of Survey Methods, NCES Technical Report. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265593555_NCES_Handbook_of_Survey_Methods_Technical_Report#fullTextFileContent [accessed Mar 15 2026].

At the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), he was lead mathematical statistician for the U.S. Commodity Flow Survey (2000–2002) and later served as the BTS Assistant Director for Survey Programs (2002–2006) overseeing BTS statistical surveys.IMS Bulletin, April 2006, https://imstat.org/wp-content/uploads/Bulletin35_3.pdf

Awards and honors Cohen is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Educational Research Association, the American Statistical Association (ASA), the Royal Statistical Society, and the Washington Academy of Sciences.JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/27281312. His ASA Fellow award was for "technical contributions to a wide range of topics in survey research; for technical leadership within government organizations; and for outstanding service to the profession."

In addition, Cohen was honored with the American Statistical Association Outstanding Service Award in 2010 and the Washington Statistical Society (WSS) President's Award in 1999 for "many WSS contributions."

Editorial work Cohen served as an associate editor of the Journal of the American Statistical Association from 2004 to 2006. He has been an associate editor of the Journal of Official Statistics since 2003, and a consulting editor of the Journal of Experimental Education since 2010.

Professional activities Cohen was President of the Washington Academy of Sciences from 2003 to 2004. He was President of the Washington Statistical Society from 2007 to 2008. He served as a member of the Congress of the Mathematical Association of America from 2018 to 2021. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Academies of Science.

Selected publications With Lynn Kuo, Cohen investigated the decision‑theoretic properties of the empirical distribution function.Cohen, Michael P., and Lynn Kuo. "The admissibility of the empirical distribution function." The Annals of Statistics 13, no. 1 (1985a): 262–271. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2241158Cohen, M. P., and L. Kuo. "Minimax sampling strategies for estimating a finite population distribution function." Statistics & Risk Modeling 3, no. 3–4 (1985b): 205–224. https://doi.org/10.6339/JDS.201904_17(2).0008 He studied how to design statistical surveys when the data are to be analyzed by multilevel models.Cohen, Michael P. "Determining sample sizes for surveys with data analyzed by hierarchical linear models." Journal of Official Statistics 14, no. 3 (1998): 267–276., http://www.jstor.org.dclibrary.idm.oclc.org/stable/25472676.Cohen, Michael P. "Sample size considerations for multilevel surveys." International Statistical Review 73, no. 3 (2005): 279–287. http://www.jstor.org.dclibrary.idm.oclc.org/stable/25472676. With coauthors, he researched the behavior of rural high school graduates after graduation, in one of the earliest applications of logistic multilevel models.Huang, Gary G., Stanley Weng, Fan Zhang, and Michael P. Cohen. "Outmigration among rural high school graduates: The effect of academic and vocational programs." Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 19, no. 4 (1997): 360–372. https://doi-org.dclibrary.idm.oclc.org/10.2307/1164450. With Douglas Wright, he investigated possible bias in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) caused by non‑participation of schools.Wright, Douglas, and Michael P. Cohen. "National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP): Nonresponse Study." (1993). ERIC ED363666 He developed the Bayesian bootstrap for unequal probability sampling.Cohen, Michael P. "The Bayesian bootstrap and multiple imputation for unequal probability sample designs." In Proceedings of the Survey Research Methods Section, American Statistical Association, 635–638. 1997 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258821689_The_Bayesian_Bootstrap_and_Multiple_Imputation_for_Unequal_Probability_Sample_Designs. He explored statistical hypothesis testing when the null hypothesis is an interval.Cohen, Michael P. "Why not an interval null hypothesis." Journal of Data Science 17, no. 2 (2021): 383–390 https://doi.org/10.6339/JDS.201904_17(2).0008. DOI:10.6339/JDS.201904_17(2).0008Cohen, Michael P. "Interval null hypotheses when different intervals are considered." Far East Journal of Theoretical Statistics 68, no. 2 (2024): 263–269. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17654/0972086324016 In philosophy of science, he conducted research in formal epistemology.Cohen, Michael P. "On Schupbach and Sprenger’s measures of explanatory power." Philosophy of Science 82, no. 1 (2015): 97–109. https://doi-org.dclibrary.idm.oclc.org/10.1086/678980.Cohen, Michael P. "On three measures of explanatory power with axiomatic representations." The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 67, no. 4 (2016): 1077–1089. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/axv017 http://www.jstor.org.dclibrary.idm.oclc.org/stable/44505712.

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