Commissioner Biographies

Katharine G. Abraham

University of Maryland

Commissioner and Chair

Katharine G. Abraham is Professor of Economics and Survey Methodology at the University of 

Maryland. She has written extensively on the effects of labor market policies and institutions on firm 

and worker behavior, labor market adjustment over the business cycle, and the measurement of 

economic activity. Abraham first joined the University of Maryland faculty in 1987, after holding 

prior positions at the Brookings Institution from 1985 to 1987 and at the Massachusetts Institute of 

Technology’s Sloan School of Management from 1980 to 1985. From 2011 to 2013, Abraham 

served as a Member of the Council of Economic Advisers and from 1993 to 2001, she served as 

Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Abraham is a Fellow of the Society of Labor 

Economists and of the American Statistical Association and has served as a Vice President of the 

American Economic Association. Abraham received a Bachelor’s degree from Iowa State University 

and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Ron Haskins 

Brookings Institution

Commissioner and Co-Chair

Ron Haskins is a Senior Fellow and holds the Cabot Family Chair in Economic Studies at the 

Brookings Institution, where he co-directs the Center on Children and Families. Haskins is also a 

senior consultant at the Annie E. Casey Foundation and is Past-President of the Association for 

Public Policy Analysis and Management. Prior to joining Brookings and Casey, he spent 14 years on 

the staff of the House Ways and Means Human Resources Subcommittee, serving as the 

subcommittee’s Staff Director after Republicans became the majority party in the House after the 

1994 elections. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in History, a Master of Arts in Teaching, and a Ph.D. in 

Developmental Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In his Washington 

career, he has focused on evidence-based policy, early childhood education, marriage and family 

formation, poverty, equal opportunity, abused and neglected children, and budget issues.

Sherry Glied 

New York University

Commissioner

In August 2013, Sherry Glied became Dean of New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate 

School of Public Service. From 1989-2013, she was Professor of Health Policy and Management at 

Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. She was Chair of the department from 

1998-2009. On June 22, 2010, Glied was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Assistant Secretary for 

Planning and Evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and served in that 

capacity from July 2010 through August 2012. She has previously served as Senior Economist for 

health care and labor market policy on the Council of Economic Advisers in 1992-1993, under 

Presidents Bush and Clinton. Glied’s principal areas of research are in health policy reform and 

mental health care policy.
Robert M. Groves 

Georgetown University

Commissioner

Robert M. Groves is the Provost of Georgetown University and the Gerard J. Campbell, S.J. 

Professor in the Math and Statistics Department as well as the Sociology Department. He served as 

director of the U.S. Census Bureau during the conduct of the 2010 Census of Population. Groves 

studies how to improve large-scale sample surveys and censuses. His research has focused on the 

impact of mode of data collection on responses in sample surveys, the influences on survey 

participation, the use of adaptive research designs to improve the cost and error properties of 

statistics, and public concerns about privacy affecting attitudes toward statistical agencies. Groves is 

an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine. 

He is also the chair of the Committee on National Statistics at the National Academies of Sciences, 

Engineering, and Medicine. He is an appointed member of the National Science Board, overseeing 

the National Science Foundation, as well as the Board of the Pew Research Center.

Robert Hahn 

University of Oxford

Commissioner

Robert Hahn is Professor and Director of Economics at the Smith School of Enterprise and the 

Environment at the University of Oxford; a senior fellow at the Institute for New Economic 

Thinking at Oxford; a senior fellow at the Georgetown University Center for Business and Public 

Policy, and a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Hahn worked at American 

Enterprise Institute for two decades, where he co-founded and directed the AEI-Brookings Joint 

Center. Previously, Hahn worked for the Council of Economic Advisers and was the chief 

economist on the White House drafting team for the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. He also has 

served on the faculties of Harvard University and Carnegie Mellon University. Hahn is currently 

conducting several behavioral economics experiments aimed at encouraging the conservation of 

energy and water resources, improving labor productivity, improving health outcomes, and 

understanding the welfare benefits of new technologies. In addition, he co-founded the Community 

Preparatory School, an inner-city middle school in Providence, Rhode Island, that provides 

opportunities for disadvantaged youth to achieve their full potential.

Hilary Hoynes 

University of California, Berkeley

Commissioner

Hilary Hoynes is a Professor of Economics and Public Policy and holds the Haas Distinguished 

Chair in Economic Disparities at the University of California, Berkeley. From 2011 to 2016, she was 

a co-editor of the leading journal in economics the American Economic Review. Hoynes specializes 

in the study of poverty, inequality, food and nutrition programs, and the impacts of government tax 

and transfer programs on low-income families. Current projects include evaluating the effects of 

access to the social safety net in early life on later life health and human capital outcomes, examining 

the effects of the Great Recession on poverty, and the role of the safety net in mitigating income 
losses. Professor Hoynes is a member of the American Economic Association’s Executive 

Committee and a member of the Committee Panel on National Statistics at the National Academies 

of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on Building an Agenda to Reduce the Number of Children 

in Poverty by Half in 10 Years. Previously, she was a member of the Advisory Committee for Social, 

Behavioral and Economic Sciences for the National Science Foundation and the National Advisory 

Committee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholars in Health Policy Research Program.

Jeffrey Liebman 

Harvard University

Commissioner

Jeffrey Liebman is the Malcolm Wiener Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School 

where he directs the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and the Rappaport Institute 

for Greater Boston. Liebman teaches courses in social policy, public sector economics, American 

economic policy, and public sector management. In his research, he studies tax and budget policy, 

social insurance, and public sector innovation. During the first two years of the Obama 

Administration, Liebman served at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, first as Executive 

Associate Director and Chief Economist and then as Acting Deputy Director. From 1998 to 1999, 

Liebman served as Special Assistant to the President for economic policy and coordinated the 

Clinton Administration’s Social Security reform technical working group. For the past five years, his 

Harvard Kennedy School Government Performance Lab has been providing pro bono technical 

assistance to state and local governments interested in improving the results they achieve for their 

citizens.

Bruce D. Meyer 

University of Chicago

Commissioner

Bruce D. Meyer is the McCormick Foundation Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy at the 

University of Chicago where he has been since 2004. From 1987 to 2004, Meyer was a professor in 

the Economics Department at Northwestern University. He is also a Research Associate of the 

National Bureau of Economic Research and a Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. 

He studies poverty and inequality, tax policy, government safety net programs such as 

unemployment insurance, workers' compensation, food stamps, and Medicaid, and the accuracy of

household surveys. His most recent work includes research on trends in poverty and inequality, the 

consequences of disability, the effects of Medicaid, and errors in household surveys. He currently 

serves on the Technical Advisory Committee to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the American 

Economic Association Committee on Government Relations, and as an officer of the Business and 

Economic Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association. Meyer received his Bachelor’s 

degree and Master’s degree in economics from Northwestern University and his Ph.D. in economics 

from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Paul Ohm 

Georgetown University

Commissioner

Paul Ohm is a Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center. He specializes in 

information privacy, computer crime law, intellectual property, and criminal procedure.

Allison B. Orris 

U.S. Office of Management and Budget

Commissioner

(Departed the Commission on January 20, 2017)

Allison B. Orris was the Associate Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory 

Affairs at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, a position she held from September 2014-

January 2017. Orris served in several roles at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services from 2009 to 2014, including Senior Policy Advisor, 

Acting Director of the Division of State Demonstrations and Waivers, and Director of the Low 

Income Programs Analysis Group in the Office of Legislation. Before joining CMS, Orris was a 

Senior Legislative Associate at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities from 2006 to 2009. From 

2002 to 2006, she practiced law at Powell Goldstein LLP in Washington, D.C. Orris received a 

Bachelor’s degree in History from Columbia University and a J.D. from Yale University.

Nancy Potok 

U.S. Office of Management and Budget

Commissioner

(Appointed to the Commission on March 10, 2017)

Nancy Potok is Chief Statistician of the United States and Chief of the Statistical and Science Policy 

Branch in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. Prior to January 2017, she served as Deputy 

Director and Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Census Bureau. She has also served as Deputy 

Under Secretary for Economic Affairs at the U.S. Department of Commerce; Principal Associate 

Director and CFO at the U.S. Census Bureau; Senior Vice President for Economic, Labor, and 

Population Studies at NORC at the University of Chicago; and Chief Operating Officer at McManis 

& Monsalve Associates, a business analytics consulting firm. She is an adjunct professor at the 

Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration at The George Washington 

University. Potok is an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. She 

currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics at 

the University of California Los Angeles; the Board of Trustees for the Arthur S. Flemming Award, 

which recognizes outstanding achievement by federal employees with fewer than 15 years of service;

and The George Washington University Trachtenberg School Advisory Board. Potok received her 

Ph.D. in public policy and public administration at The George Washington University, with an 

emphasis on program evaluation. 
Kathleen Rice Mosier

Faegre Baker Daniels, LLP

Commissioner

Kathleen Rice Mosier is a Counsel at Faegre Baker Daniels, LLP, where she provides advice and 

assistance to organizations on issues relating to privacy, data security, risk management, and 

compliance with applicable laws and regulations. Before joining FaegreBD, she spent nearly 20 years 

in law enforcement and national security. She served as a Counsel on the Senate Select Committee 

on Intelligence, as an Assistant General Counsel for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and as an 

Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. She is a frequent author and speaker on 

privacy and data security matters. She is also a Certified Information Privacy Professional, 

International Association of Privacy Professionals, and an Adjunct Professor of Law at Notre Dame 

Law School.

Robert Shea

Grant Thornton, LLP

Commissioner

Robert Shea is a principal and a member of the Public Sector practice at Grant Thornton, LLP. He

leads Strategy and Communications for Grant Thornton Public Sector and provides performance 

improvement services to international, federal, and state and local government agencies. Before 

joining Grant Thornton, Shea served as Associate Director for Management at the U.S. Office of 

Management and Budget (OMB). Before joining OMB, Shea served as counsel to the Senate 

Committee on Governmental Affairs, legislative director for Congressman Pete Sessions (TX), and 

professional staff member for the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight.

Latanya Sweeney 

Harvard University

Commissioner

Latanya Sweeney is Professor of Government and Technology in Residence at Harvard University. 

Her mission is to create and use technology to assess and solve societal, political and governance 

problems, and to teach others how to do the same. Her primary area of focus is the scientific study 

of technology's impact on humankind. She serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of 

Technology Science, Director of the Data Privacy Lab at Harvard, and Faculty Dean at Currier 

House. Sweeney formerly served as the Chief Technology Officer, also known as the Chief 

Technologist, at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. 
Kenneth R. Troske 

University of Kentucky

Commissioner

Kenneth R. Troske is the Associate Dean for Graduate Programs and Outreach and Richard W. and 

Janis H. Furst Endowed Chair in Economics at the Gatton College of Business and Economics at 

the University of Kentucky as well as a Research Fellow with the Institute for the Study of Labor 

(IZA) in Bonn, Germany. Troske served as a member of the Congressional Oversight Panel whose 

task was to assess the existing condition of America’s financial markets and the regulatory system as 

well as to monitor the actions of the Treasury Department and financial institutions to determine if 

their actions are in the best interest of the American economy. His primary research areas are labor 

and human resource economics. He received his undergraduate degree in economics from the 

University of Washington in 1984 and his Ph.D. in economics in 1992 from the University of 

Chicago.

Kim R. Wallin 

D.K. Wallin, Ltd.

Commissioner

Kim R. Wallin is currently in private practice at her CPA firm, D.K. Wallin Ltd., which she founded 

in 1984. She took eight years off to be the Controller for the State of Nevada. Wallin was the first 

CPA to be elected to the office of Nevada State Controller in 50 years and the first Certified 

Management Accountant to ever hold this office. As Controller, she received the Association of 

Government Accountants Presidents Award and Excellence in Government Award and the 

National Association of Comptrollers President’s Award for her work to improve transparency in 

government with the use of technology. She also received the National Association of State 

Auditors, Comptrollers and Treasurers President’s Award for her work on various U.S. Presidential 

work groups and for her continued efforts to improve efficiency and accountability in Government. 

Wallin is a graduate of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas with a degree in Business 

Administration with a major in accounting.