Newsroom Archive

The U.S. Census Bureau announced today the establishment of the National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic and Other Populations and has named Akram Khater as a member of the committee.

The National Advisory Committee will advise the Census Bureau on a wide range of variables that affect the cost, accuracy and implementation of the Census Bureau’s programs and surveys, including the once-a-decade census. The committee, which is comprised of 32 members from multiple disciplines, will advise the Census Bureau on topics such as housing, children, youth, poverty, privacy, race and ethnicity, as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other populations.

“We expect that the expertise of this committee will help us meet emerging challenges the Census Bureau faces in producing statistics about our diverse nation,” said Thomas Mesenbourg, the Census Bureau’s acting director. “By helping us better understand a variety of issues that affect statistical measurement, this committee will help ensure that the Census Bureau continues to provide relevant and timely statistics used by federal, state and local governments as well as business and industry in an increasingly technologically oriented society.”

The National Advisory Committee members, who serve at the discretion of the Census Bureau director, are chosen to serve based on expertise and knowledge of the cultural patterns, issues and/or statistical needs of hard-to-count populations.

Akram Khater, a native of Lebanon, is Alumni Distinguished University Professor, professor of history at North Carolina State University, director of the Middle East Studies Program and director of the Khayrallah Program for Lebanese-American Studies. He earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from California Polytechnic State University, a master’s degree in history from the University of California, Santa Cruz and a doctorate in history from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a published author and recently completed a PBS documentary on the history of the Lebanese community in North Carolina. He is the senior curator for a museum exhibit on the same topic that will open in early 2014.