When Dr Tarun Kumar Roy received a major award for excellence in teaching, on the occasion of the 50th (jubilee) anniversary of the International Institute for Population Sciences in Mumbai, where he was a previous director, the applause from the large audience was thunderous and sustained. It went on for more than ten minutes. The atmosphere was exhilarating and the good will was infectious. I had never before seen such an enthusiastic display of affection for a professor and a scholar, but having worked with Dr Roy for more than twenty years I was not surprised. What causes an individual to garner such respect from a very diverse audience? Dr Roy is the consummate professor and a true guru in his field. His ability to connect with students and researchers on both a cerebral and personal level is a key factor. He is well known for the depth of his knowledge in numerous areas (including statistical survey design, demography, international development, and impact evaluation). His ability to accurately answer questions from students and colleagues in his areas of expertise in simple terms, and his honesty in not being afraid to admit when he does not know an answer, which thankfully is a rare event, has always been highly appreciated. Personally, I have worked on large-scale nationally representative household surveys in 17 low- and middle-income countries, and in all that time I have rarely come across a colleague who is as knowledgeable, dependable, and humble as Professor Roy.

Together with his distinguished co-authors (Rajib Acharya and A. K. Roy), T. K. Roy has managed to translate his ability to connect with students and faculty on multiple levels into an immensely readable book that will be equally useful to beginners and seasoned professionals. The authors’ skill in getting the material across to readers comes not only from their solid background in scientific survey sampling methods and statistics but also from their on-the-ground experience with some of the largest and most complex household surveys that have ever been conducted, including four National Family Health Surveys in India (that have included interviews with a total of more than one million respondents). This experience has allowed the authors to go well beyond the theory of sampling statistics to the application of those statistics to real-life situations.