Katherine Wallman served as chief statistician of the United States from 1992 to 2017, and her work contributed to changes in the national poverty measurement.
Raised in New Jersey by an elementary school teacher and telephone company executive, Wallman graduated from Wellesley College, where she considered majoring in math but ultimately chose sociology. She began her professional career working for New England Telephone, learning assembly language and COBOL. In 1967, she moved to Washington, DC, took the civil service exam, and began her federal career.
Wallman’s first federal job was at the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. She then eventually landed at the National Center for Education Statistics, where she focused on strengthening ties with state education agencies. In 1978, she moved to the Office of Management and Budget as deputy chief statistician. In 1981, she served as the inaugural executive director for the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics before becoming the chief statistician of the United States in 1992.
As chief statistician, Wallman emphasized that a central challenge for the national statistical system was balancing data confidentiality with access for legitimate statistical use. This principle guided one of her major achievements as chief statistician: securing strong, uniform legal protections for statistical confidentiality through the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002, later expanded in the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018.
While chief statistician, she was elected president of the American Statistical Association. During her term as president of the ASA, she emphasized statistical standards and professional practice and collaboration within the profession. She also advocated for statistical education, supporting the establishment of the ASA’s Journal of Statistics Education, now called the ASA’s Journal of Statistics Education and Data Science.
Wallman has received multiple professional honors, including being elected as member of the International Statistical Institute and founding member of the International Association for Official Statistics. She also received the Population Association of America’s Excellence in Public Service Award. She was named ASA Fellow in 1983, ASA Founder in 2007, and in 2017, she received the Julius Shiskin award for Economic Statistics from the Washington Statistical Society and the National Association of Business Economists.
Wallman remained active professionally after her retirement, serving on the Council of the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan and other boards.
She passed away January 17, 2024, and will be remembered for her long career in public service and leadership within the statistical community.
In recognition of her lasting influence, the Katherine Wallman Award for Transformative Impact on Federal, State, or Local Statistics was established to honor individuals or small groups whose work advances official statistics at every level of government. Those who wish to celebrate her legacy may support the Katherine Wallman Award Fund with a gift in her memory .
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