Woody Carter, PhD, has been the senior methodologist on the Slover Linett team since 2006, first as Senior Researcher and currently as Senior Research Fellow. He brings thirty years of academic and professional research and evaluation experience to the firm. A sociologist by training, Woody has held senior positions at leading social research organizations, directed national and Chicago-area studies in the nonprofit sector, and co-authored more than a dozen published studies and papers.

Woody is also a lecturer in the Public Policy department at the University of Chicago, where he teaches courses in research methods and the theory and practice of public policy.

At Slover Linett, Woody focuses on questionnaire design, sample design, and advanced analysis of quantitative and qualitative data. He is involved in projects in all our client areas, from science museums and the performing arts to higher education.

Before joining Slover Linett and returning to teaching in 2006, Woody was Senior Survey Director for the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago, where he ran the National Health and Social Life Survey (1991–93), the Survey of 1990 Census Participation (1990), and the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience (1986–88), among others. 

He also served as Director of Research for the Metro Chicago Information Center (MCIC), leading regional studies including the Chicago Metropolis 2020 Quality of Life Survey (2000–02), the Illinois Families Study (2000–03) and the Chicago Metro Survey (2000–03), MCIC’s flagship social indicators project.

Woody has also taught statistics and survey methodology at Northern Arizona University. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago and his Bachelor’s degree in English literature from Brown University.

Woody lives in the Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago’s south side, where he is by both context and inclination a White Sox fan.