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The U.S. Census Bureau announced today the establishment of the National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic and Other Populations and has named Angelo Falcón 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.

Angelo Falcón is president of the National Institute for Latino Policy (NiLP), a nonpartisan policy center established in 1982 and based in New York City. He is the editor of the NiLP Network on Latino Issues, which includes the Latino Census Network information service. He is a political scientist and is a nationally recognized expert on Latino policy and political issues. He is co-editor of the forthcoming book, “Latin@s in New York: Communities in Transition” and the report, “Data Dissemination in Communities of Color: The Role of the Census Information Centers.” Falcón has served as chairman of the Census Bureau's Advisory Committee on the Hispanic Population and currently is a member of the steering committee of the Census Information Centers Program. He also serves on the boards of directors of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda and the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights.