Helen Schneider Dinerman (25 December 1920 – 14 August 1974) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 sociologist

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

 and public opinion

Public opinion

Public opinion is the aggregate of individual attitudes or beliefs held by the adult population. Public opinion can also be defined as the complex collection of opinions of many different people and the sum of all their views....

 researcher.

Biography

Born in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 in 1920, Dinerman received her education at Hunter College

Hunter College

Hunter College, established in 1870, is a public university and one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Hunter grants undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees in more than one hundred fields of study, and is recognized...

 and Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

. Later, she worked as a researcher in the United States Office of War Information

United States Office of War Information

The United States Office of War Information was a U.S. government agency created during World War II to consolidate government information services. It operated from June 1942 until September 1945...

and trained at the Bureau for Applied Social Research, the first academic research centre dedicated to survey research

Survey research

Survey research a research method involving the use of questionnaires and/or statistical surveys to gather data about people and their thoughts and behaviours. This method was pioneered in the 1930s and 1940s by sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld. The initial use of the method was to examine the effects...

,
founded by Paul Lazarsfeld

Paul Lazarsfeld

Paul Felix Lazarsfeld was one of the major figures in 20th-century American sociology. The founder of Columbia University's Bureau of Applied Social Research, he exerted a tremendous influence over the techniques and the organization of social research...

 in 1944.
She became employed with the International Research Associates in 1948, and became Chairman of the firm's Executive Committee in 1968.

Dinerman died in Emanuel Hospital
in Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

 on 14 August 1974 while on holiday with her daughter.

Legacy

In 1981, the World Association for Public Opinion Research

World Association for Public Opinion Research

The World Association for Public Opinion Research is an international professional association of researchers in the fields of communication and survey research...

established the Helen Dinerman Award – "in memory of Helen Dinerman's scientific achievements over three decades of public opinion research" – to recognise individuals who have made "significant contributions to survey research methodology".