Jennifer Madans
Jennifer H. Madans, Ph.D. (Sociology and Populations Studies) recently retired from the National Center for Health Statistics, the U.S.’s principal statistical agency. Most recently she served as the Center’s Associate Director for Science and Acting Director and was responsible for the overall plan and development of NCHS’s data collection and analysis programs. Dr. Madans has concentrated her research efforts on data collection methodology and the measurement of health and functioning. Currently, she is a disability statistics consultant and Senior Associate with CIP. She also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Population Reference Bureau.
She is a founding member and has been the chair of the steering committees for three UN sponsored initiatives to develop internationally comparable measures of disability and health, including the Washington Group on Disability Statistics, a city group under the auspices of the UN Statistical Commission. Since 2002 she has worked extensively with National Statistical Offices, government development agencies, Non-Governmental Organizations and Organizations of Persons with Disabilities to advance the availability and quality of disability statistics. Dr. Madans has conducted numerous training sessions, provided extensive technical assistance, and has been an invited to speak at a range of events on the collection and analysis of disability data at the country, regional and international level. She has contributed to a wide body of written work addressing all aspects of disability data collection which is used internationally.
Dr. Madans is a graduate of Bard College (B.A.) and the University of Michigan (M.A. and Ph.D.). She is an elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association and an elected member of the International Statistical Institute and served as a Vice President of the International Association of Official Statistics. Dr. Madans received the 2015 Roger Herriot Award for Innovation in Federal Statistics from the American Statistical Association and the 2016 Excellence in Public Service Award from the Population Association of American.
