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 Kirsten Martin 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.

Kirsten Martin is an assistant professor of business administration at the George Washington University’s School of Business. She has been an assistant professor of management at Catholic University and an instructor at the University of Virginia’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. She recently received a two-year grant from the National Science Foundation to study online privacy issues. She spent eight years with private business, first as a business process consultant with Andersen Consulting and then developing Internet-based ventures with Sprint Communications. She earned her bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Michigan and her MBA and doctorate degree in business from the University of Virginia.