Cathie Marsh (1953 - 1993)
Cathie Marsh, who died of breast cancer in 1993 at the tragically early age of 41, was a gifted social scientist who deservedly belongs in the pantheon of social and survey research. She was equally at home in sociological debate, empirical research and statistical modelling.
I first met her when she was a PhD student at Cambridge and attending the SSRC Survey Unit Summer School in Survey Methods at Reading University in 1974. She could turn her hand to anything (including organising a bar where there wasn't one before) and was not afraid of "getting her hands dirty". |
The Unit was looking for a new research trainee and had just advertised a Research Assistant post, for which I encouraged Cathie to apply, and to which she was duly appointed. At the Unit she worked on a range of projects with myself (Quality of Life survey, data preparation, coding sheets for SPSS setup files, commissioning fieldwork) John Utting (sampling, statistics and the SSRC Survey Unit Multi-Purpose Survey) and Jim Ring (statistical modelling) in close collaboration with James A Davis.
When I first met her in 1974 she had an SSRC postgraduate award to study for a PhD at Cambridge which which required her to attend the SSRC Survey Unit Summer School in Survey Methods at Reading University. The Unit was looking for a new research trainee and had just advertised a Research Assistant post, for which I encouraged her to apply, and to which she was duly appointed. She could turn her hand to anything (including organising a bar where there wasn't one before) and was not afraid of "getting her hands dirty".
At the Unit she worked on a range of projects with myself (Quality of Life survey, computing, SPSS, commissioning fieldwork) John Utting (sampling, statistics and the SSRC Survey Unit Multi-Purpose Survey) and Jim Ring (statistical modelling) in close collaboration with James A Davis.
When SSRC closed the Unit in 1976 she moved to Cambridge as Lecturer in Social and Political Sciences and in 1989 was awarded a personal Chair at the Centre for Census and Survey Research at Manchester, which is now named after her as the Cathie Marsh Institute for Social Research.
When I first met her in 1974 she had an SSRC postgraduate award to study for a PhD at Cambridge which which required her to attend the SSRC Survey Unit Summer School in Survey Methods at Reading University. The Unit was looking for a new research trainee and had just advertised a Research Assistant post, for which I encouraged her to apply, and to which she was duly appointed. She could turn her hand to anything (including organising a bar where there wasn't one before) and was not afraid of "getting her hands dirty".
At the Unit she worked on a range of projects with myself (Quality of Life survey, computing, SPSS, commissioning fieldwork) John Utting (sampling, statistics and the SSRC Survey Unit Multi-Purpose Survey) and Jim Ring (statistical modelling) in close collaboration with James A Davis.
When SSRC closed the Unit in 1976 she moved to Cambridge as Lecturer in Social and Political Sciences and in 1989 was awarded a personal Chair at the Centre for Census and Survey Research at Manchester, which is now named after her as the Cathie Marsh Institute for Social Research.
Publications
Marsh C 1975
Job Satisfaction: the Search Goes On
Paper: (pdf downloadable from the original site)
UK/USA SSRC Conference on Subjective Measures of Quality of Life,
Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, SSRC Survey Unit, September, 1975
Cathie Marsh
Guidelines on commissioning an interview survey from a research company
(Pamphlet: pdf downloadable from the original site)
SSRC Survey Unit, 1976
Catherine Marsh
The survey method : the contribution of surveys to sociological explanation
(Allen and Unwin, 1982)
Catherine Marsh
Exploring Data: An Introduction to Data Analysis for Social Scientists
(Polity Press, 1988)
Catherine Marsh & Jane Elliott
Exploring Data: An Introduction to Data Analysis for Social Scientists
(2nd edition, Polity Press, 2008)
Obituaries (downloadable from this site: reprinted with permission):
1: Ruth Durrell (CCSR, Manchester)
2: Angela Dale [cathie_marsh_obituary_angela_dale.pdf]
3: Sara Arber (Sociology 1993)
Marsh C 1975
Job Satisfaction: the Search Goes On
Paper: (pdf downloadable from the original site)
UK/USA SSRC Conference on Subjective Measures of Quality of Life,
Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, SSRC Survey Unit, September, 1975
Cathie Marsh
Guidelines on commissioning an interview survey from a research company
(Pamphlet: pdf downloadable from the original site)
SSRC Survey Unit, 1976
Catherine Marsh
The survey method : the contribution of surveys to sociological explanation
(Allen and Unwin, 1982)
Catherine Marsh
Exploring Data: An Introduction to Data Analysis for Social Scientists
(Polity Press, 1988)
Catherine Marsh & Jane Elliott
Exploring Data: An Introduction to Data Analysis for Social Scientists
(2nd edition, Polity Press, 2008)
Obituaries (downloadable from this site: reprinted with permission):
1: Ruth Durrell (CCSR, Manchester)
2: Angela Dale [cathie_marsh_obituary_angela_dale.pdf]
3: Sara Arber (Sociology 1993)