Josh Coutts is a geographer in the U.S. Census Bureau's Geography Division. He has experience with statistical geography such as census tracts, and Public Use Microdata Areas, tribal geography, and Island Area geography. He is also a member of the United Nations Expert Group on the Integration of Statistical and Geospatial Information. He is currently working on developing gridded census data as a new public product for the Bureau.

Gretchen Gooding is a branch chief in the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey Office. Her branch oversees data release activities for the American Community Survey website; manages the division’s exhibits, presentations, and webinars; and provides customer support for data users. In 2015, Gretchen received a Bronze Medal Award from the Department of Commerce for her work on the Stats in Action video series, and she received the Outstanding Mentor Award in 2018. Gretchen received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and master’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She also has a Master’s Certificate in Project Management from The George Washington University.

Christine Hartley is the Assistant Division Chief for Estimates and Projections in the Population Division at the U.S. Census Bureau where her primary responsibility is managing production, review and dissemination of the official population and housing unit estimates for the United States and subnational geographies, as well as population projections for the nation. In this role, she is committed to continually improving the estimates production and dissemination processes by fostering relationships with external stakeholders, promoting rigorous research and exploring innovative ways to meet the evolving needs of data users. Christine joined the Census Bureau in 2009 as a demographer in the Population Projections Branch. She received a doctorate in sociology with a focus on demography and research statistics from Texas A&M University in 2010.

Ditas M. Katague is the U.S. Census Bureau’s associate director for communications. She is responsible for leading the internal and external communications activities of the nation’s largest statistical agency. This includes oversight of marketing, public affairs, congressional and intergovernmental affairs, customer service, stakeholder engagement, and media relations.

Prior to joining the Census Bureau in 2022, Katague was director of the California Complete Count – Census 2020 Office, the outreach and communications campaign that worked to ensure a complete population count of historically undercounted Californians. This built on her experience leading the state’s decennial census outreach efforts in 2000 and 2010. In 2000, as chief deputy campaign director for the Governor’s Census 2000 California Complete Count campaign, Katague led a groundbreaking multilingual, multimedia outreach effort that resulted in a mail-in return rate that outpaced the national rate. She also served as chief of staff to the California Public Utilities Commission, where she improved public participation and access to the energy and telecommunications utility rate and regulation process.

Katague served on the Census Bureau’s National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic and Other Populations, from 2012 to 2018, including three years as its chair. 

Katague is an expert in multiethnic outreach and civic engagement. Since 1998, she has served on the Sacramento Center Advisory Board for the Sol Price School of Public Policy, University of Southern California. She holds a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Southern California and a bachelor’s degree from University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Sallie Ann Keller is chief scientist and associate director of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Research and Methodology Directorate. She also holds an endowed distinguished professorship in biocomplexity and faculty appointments in the School of Medicine, Department of Public Health Services; School of Engineering and Applied Science, Department of Engineering Systems and Environment; and School of Data Science at the University of Virginia (UVA).

As chief scientist, Keller will lead the Research and Methodology Directorate’s research centers, each devoted to domains of investigation important to the future of social and economic statistics. The directorate collaborates with teams across the U.S. Census Bureau and with researchers around the country and the world to develop innovative scientific solutions and advances to ensure the Census Bureau remains a leader in economic and social measurement.

Keller is a nationally recognized research scientist whose areas of expertise are social and decision informatics, statistical underpinnings of data science, and data access and confidentiality. She is a leading voice in creating the science of all data and advancing this research across disciplines to benefit society.

Her prior positions include director of the Social and Decision Analytics Division within UVA’s Biocomplexity Institute and Initiative; professor of statistics and director of the Social and Decision Analytics Laboratory within the Biocomplexity Institute of Virginia Tech; academic vice president and provost at University of Waterloo; director of the Institute for Defense Analyses Science and Technology Policy Institute; the William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Engineering at Rice University; head of the Statistical Sciences group at Los Alamos National Laboratory; professor of statistics at Kansas State University; and Statistics Program director at the National Science Foundation.

Keller is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. She has served as a member of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Mathematical Sciences and Their Applications and the Committee on National Statistics, and as chair of the Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an elected member of the International Statistics Institute, and a fellow and past president of the American Statistical Association. Keller earned her B.S. and M.S. in mathematics from the University of South Florida and her Ph.D. in statistics from Iowa State University.

Robert L. Santos is the 26th director of the U.S. Census Bureau. He was sworn in on January 5, 2022.

His career spans more than 40 years in survey research, statistical design and analysis and executive-level management. Before coming to the Census Bureau, he spent 15 years as vice president and chief methodologist at the Urban Institute and directed its Statistical Methods Group – and served as executive vice president and partner of NuStats, a social science research firm in Austin, Texas.

Santos has held leadership positions at the nation’s top survey research organizations, including the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center (NORC), where he served as vice president of statistics and methodology and director of survey operations; the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research as director of survey operations; and Temple University’s Institute for Survey Research as senior study director and sampling statistician.

Santos specializes in quantitative and qualitative research design, including program evaluation, needs assessments, survey methodology and survey operations. He also has expertise in demographic and administrative data, decennial censuses, social policy research and equity issues in research.

Santos served as the 2021 president of the American Statistical Association (ASA) and is an ASA fellow and 2006 recipient of the ASA Founder’s Award. He served as president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) in 2014 and received the 2021 AAPOR Award for Exceptionally Distinguished Achievement. He also received the 2022 Ohtli Award, the highest recognition bestowed by the Mexican government to acknowledge contributions to the Mexican community by people living outside of Mexico. In 2023, he received the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund’s Excellence in Community Service Award.

Santos is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute and, from 2017 to 2020, served on the Board of Scientific Counselors for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. He was also a longtime member of the editorial board of Public Opinion Quarterly.

Santos was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. He graduated from Holy Cross of San Antonio High School and earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Trinity University in San Antonio and a master’s degree in statistics from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. In 2023, he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Sciences by North Carolina State University as well as an honorary Associate of Science from San Antonio College.

Allison Shafer is a Supervisory Geographer in the Statistical Areas and Boundaries Branch in the Geography Division at the U.S. Census Bureau. Allison has experience in both the corporate world and government sector and has spent the last seven years of her career in the Geography Division working on many facets of the division’s work. This includes supporting and leading geographic partnership programs including outreach and production; contributing to the Geospatial Frames team; and most recently, leading a team producing and maintaining the Census Bureau’s statistical areas and boundaries and managing geospatial metadata compliance efforts. Ms. Shafer is passionate about the accuracy, availability, and openness of data. She holds a Master of Science in Data Science and a Bachelor of Science in Geography/GIS with a minor in Anthropology.