Summer is as passionate about conducting quality research as she is about road-trips, dark chocolate, and gardening. A native of Florida, Summer is always planning for her next trip to the beach and while she misses Florida wildlife, she has fully assimilated to Philadelphia and is always ready to share knowledge of her favorite city.
As a survey researcher with more than 15 years of experience, she’s worked as both an operational leader and a client-facing research director within healthcare, education, social science and political polling. Through a career that started on the front lines of survey research as a telephone interviewer, Summer has been able to learn each step of collecting and presenting data and relies on this extensive experience daily. In her current role, Summer has created and manages a multi-mode data collection schedule, works closely with the client service teams on phone, mail, and multi-mode bids and execution, and manages our data collection partnerships with vendors across translations, phone data collection, print/mail, and data editing. Summer and the operational team consult and collaborate with our account executives and methods teams to build and execute complex research initiatives that are on the cutting edge of social science.
Aside from working with the SSRS Team, she is always excited to engage through the Diversity and Inclusion Committee, participating in company Quizzo and helping to support various SSRS community outreach initiatives.
In her free time, Summer enjoys country line dancing, traveling, taking care of her tropical plant collection and trying new vegan restaurants whenever she can.
Engaging with and for her community is incredibly important to Summer. She is actively involved in her local neighborhood Civic Association and volunteers at her polling place for every election. Supporting and advocating for women’s issues and LGBTQIA+ rights has long been a passion for Summer, and she fundraises, volunteers and supports both local Philadelphia and national causes for AIDS research and equal rights, pay and protection. Outside SSRS, she has volunteered with Our Night Out (Delaware Valley Legacy Fund), Philly AIDS Walk, Cocktails Against Cancer, Grace Café (Philadelphia) and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.