PEOPLE
Benjamin Phillips, Ph.D.
Associate Research Scientist
Benjamin Phillips is an associate research scientist at the Steinhardt Social Research Institute and the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University.
Dr. Phillips has a B.A. (Hons.) in Government and Judaic Studies from the University of Sydney, Australia, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and Sociology from Brandeis University. His dissertation, “Numbering the Jews: Evaluating and Improving Surveys of American Jews,” analyzes the validity of past and present methods for surveying American Jewish populations and tests number of innovative approaches. Benjamin managed the 2005 Boston Jewish Community Study for SSRI. He has previously been a research fellow at the Mandell L. Berman Institute—North American Jewish Data Bank and is the co-author of a Contemporary Jewry article on the National Jewish Population Survey of 2000-01.
In addition to his interest in survey research, Dr. Phillips studies ethnic and religious status change, and is the author of two forthcoming articles in Sociology of Religion on ethno-religious switching and apostasy and on Jewish intermarriage as a test case of the notion of ethnic capital. He is also a co-author of the CMJS report, Evaluating birthright israel: Long-Term Impact and Recent Findings.