CNSTAT has been committed to nonpartisan, evidence-based approaches to providing advice to the statistical community, the federal government, and the nation since our inception in 1972. As always, our publications and other resources are available to all for free on our website. Here’s the latest news and updates from CNSTAT and around the statistical community for the month of June.
Upcoming Events
Public Information-Gathering Session
Peer Review of the Marine Recreational Information Program Data Standards Meeting 3
The virtual open sessions of this committee meeting will be held Thursday, June 26 from 12:00 p.m. to 2:25 p.m. (ET) and Friday, June 27 from 12:00 p.m. to 2:25 p.m. (ET). Register here
Consensus Panel Meeting
A Data Infrastructure for Measuring the Care Economy
The second meeting of this panel will be held Tuesday through Thursday, July 15-17, 2025. Information about public sessions will be available on the project page here.
Final Version Released: Principles and Practices for a Federal Statistical Agency
Principles and Practices for a Federal Statistical Agency: Eighth Edition
The 8th edition of this flagship report continues the legacy supporting the essential role of relevant, credible, trusted, independent, and innovative government statistics. Since 1992, this report has described the characteristics of effective federal statistical agencies. Download the final version of the report here.
Available Resources:
- Interactive Overview
- Report Highlights
- One-page Summary
- Issue brief: A Resource for Program Agency Statistical Officials and Other Statistical Program Staff
- Issue Brief: Strengthening Partnerships with State and Local Data Stewards
- Presentation from COPAFS March 7, 2025 Meeting: Introducing the 8th edition of Principles and Practices for a Federal Statistical Agency
CNSTAT is available to provide briefings to your staff or membership. Contact mchiu@nas.edu
People in the News
CNSTAT mourns
Passing of John H. Thompson
John Thompson, outstanding public servant and contributor to the statistical community, died May 9, 2025, at age 73 from brain cancer. He began his career in 1975 when he joined the U.S. Census Bureau, where he held positions in the Statistical Methods, Statistical Support, Decennial Studies, and Decennial Management Divisions. As associate director for decennial census programs, he was responsible for all aspects of the 2000 Census, shepherding it successfully through difficult challenges—political and technical. The 2000 Census was the last in which the use of statistical methods to adjust for measured undercount was on the table, and, given strongly held views pro and con, Congress established a special monitoring board to add to the usual oversight mechanisms. To ensure an objective review, John commissioned a study by CNSTAT, chaired by Janet Norwood, which issued several interim reports and a final report, The 2000 Census: Counting Under Adversity (2004). Under John’s leadership, the 2000 census pioneered the use of optical scanning to read all of the information, including handwritten items, on the census questionnaires. He also dealt with the need, mid-census, to reduce duplicates in the census and then to reconsider and ultimately determine that adjustment of the census counts for redistricting and other purposes (the Supreme Court ruled out its use for reapportionment) was not feasible because of errors in the coverage measurement survey. He resigned from the Census Bureau in 2002 and joined NORC at the University of Chicago, becoming president and CEO in 2008. In 2013, President Obama nominated and the Senate confirmed him as director of the Census Bureau where he pushed innovation for the 2020 Census in such areas as use of the internet for response, automated scheduling of enumerator workloads, and selected use of administrative records for enumeration. After leaving the Census Bureau in 2017, he became executive director of the Council of Professional Associations for Federal Statistics for a year before retiring in 2018. He continued to be active in the statistical community, where he was a recognized leader. For the American Statistical Association, he chaired its Social Statistics Section and Committee on Fellows, was an elected fellow, and served on its Task Force on 2020 Census Quality Indicators. He served on CNSTAT from 2011–2013 and was a member of its Panel on the Design of the 2010 Census Program of Evaluations and Experiments and Panel to Review the 2010 Census. He received B.S. and M.S. Degrees in mathematics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
CNSTAT thanks
John Eltinge, Eloise Parker, and Jenny Thompson for their years of dedicated service to the federal statistical system
- John Eltinge most recently was the assistant director for research and methodology at the U.S. Census Bureau, serving from 2016 until he retired earlier this spring. Previously, he was associate commissioner for survey methods research for 12 years at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and a senior mathematical statistician at BLS. He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and was a member of the Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology. He was previously president of the Washington Statistical Society and overall chair of the 2003 Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM). He received the 2017 Roger Herriot Award for Innovation in Federal Statistics and gave the annual Deming Memorial Lecture at the 2018 JSM. He has a Ph.D. from the Department of Statistics at Iowa State University;
- Eloise Parker most recently was the assistant director for demographic programs at the U.S. Census Bureau, serving from 2013 until she retired earlier this spring. She previously worked for NORC at the University of Chicago for 10 years, as associate director for public health research and senior survey director. She was a policy analyst at the Census Bureau from 1998–2003 and before that served as Peace Corps university programs coordinator. She has a B.A. in history from the University of Virginia and an M.A. in international education from American University.
- Katherine Jenny Thompson most recently was senior mathematical statistician in the Directorate for Economic Programs, serving from 2021 until she retired earlier this spring. Her almost 37-year career at the Census Bureau spanned positions as statistician, research statistician, senior project lead, branch chief, and assistant division chief. She is an American Statistical Association (ASA) fellow, an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, and vice president of the ASA. Additionally, she was chair of the ASA Governments Statistics Section and the survey statistics editor-in-chief of the Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology. She has a B.A. in applied mathematics from Oberlin College and an M.S. in applied statistics from George Washington University.
CNSTAT congratulates
Robert Moffitt for receiving the 2025 Population Association of America Irene Taeuber Award
Robert was awarded “for having accumulated an incredible and innovative record of research. His work has made a substantial contribution toward understanding the consequences of social insurance programs for the wellbeing of the poor and disadvantaged.” Robert has been the Krieger-Eisenhower professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University since 1995, and before that was professor of economics at Brown University and worked for several years at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. He is a fellow of the Econometric Society, the Society of Labor Economists, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and past president of the Population Association of America and the Society of Labor Economists. He chaired the CNSTAT panel that produced Evaluating Welfare Reform in an Era of Transition (2021). He has a B.A. in economics from Rice University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Brown University.
Nora Cate Schaeffer for receiving the 2025 Award for Exceptionally Distinguished Achievement from the American Association of Public Opinion Research
Nora Cate “has contributed significantly to how we understand, design, and conduct interviews, and the social science community has benefited greatly from her advancements. She is also an incredible leader with a steady hand through crises.” Nora Cate is Sewell Bascom professor of sociology, emerita, at the University of Wisconsin –Madison, where she directed the Wisconsin Survey Center. She was past president of AAPOR and is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research. She served on CNSTAT from 2001–2007 and on numerous CNSTAT studies on statistical programs of the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, the Economic Research Service, USDA, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and the U.S. Census Bureau. She has a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago.
Releases from CNSTAT
Cybercrime Classification and Measurement
This report addresses the absence of credible cybercrime data and metrics. This report provides a taxonomy for the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the purpose of measuring different types of cybercrime, including both cyber-enabled and cyber-dependent crimes faced by individuals and businesses, and considers the needs for its periodic revision.
Download here
Report Highlights
Future Directions for Social and Behavioral Science Methodologies in the Next Decade
Proceedings of a Workshop—in Brief
In 2024, CNSTAT convened a workshop to explore methodological, analytical, and statistical frontiers in the social and behavioral sciences. This proceedings of a workshop-in brief summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.
Download here
Creating an Integrated System of Data and Statistics on Household Income, Consumption, and Wealth: Time to Build
The report provides recommendations for developing an improved 21st century data system for measuring the extent to which economic prosperity is shared by households throughout the population and for understanding how the distribution of resources is affected by government policy and economic events.
Download here
Interactive Overview
All of our reports can be downloaded for free from the National Academies Press.
Seminar Videos and Presentations
- CNSTAT Public Seminar: The Rise of Non-Survey Administrative Data for Statistics and Evidence-Building January 13, 2025
- CNSTAT Public Seminar: Creating an Integrated System of Data and Statistics on Household Income, Consumption, and Wealth, December 10, 2024
Interactive Resources
- Creating an Integrated System of Data and Statistics on Household Income, Consumption, and Wealth
- Measuring Law Enforcement Suicide: Challenges and Opportunities
- Strengthening the Nation’s Data Infrastructure
- An Updated Measure of Poverty: (Re)Drawing the Line
Visit our website to keep up to date on CNSTAT’s activities and learn more about our projects.