Eileen O’Brien is the director’s senior advisor and staff director. She is helping with Transformation and Modernization and scientific transparency, and she will direct the Senior Advisor Team. Eileen most recently served as deputy director of the Research and Development Division at the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), where she directed statistical estimation and remote sensing research on the agricultural domain.

Since 2020, she has led a modernization effort to help NASS move from a survey-mostly estimates approach to one augmented by administrative records, economic and environmental data, and its own geospatial assets. Eileen has more than 30 years of public service in the federal statistical system, including prior tours at NASS, the Census Bureau, and recently the Energy Information Administration (EIA). At EIA, she directed the transformation of the consumption data program, resulting in lower costs, first-ever state-level consumption estimates, and a first-in-a-series report on household energy insecurity. From 1998 to 2005, Eileen served as the Census Bureau’s lead methodologist on housing measures in censuses and surveys with an emphasis on housing assistance, finance, and quality.

Eileen holds an M.S. in survey methodology from the University of Maryland, College Park, a B.A. in economics from Michigan State University, and a master’s certificate in project management from George Washington University.