Nancy Bates spent her career as a survey statistician/methodologist at the U.S. Census Bureau. Before she retired in 2020, Bates served as the Census Bureau’s Senior Methodologist for Survey Research. During her tenure in that position, she conducted research to improve measurement of same-sex couples in the Decennial Census and American Community Survey, served as co-chair of the research group on sexual orientation and gender identity for the Office of Management and Budget and the Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology, and co-edited a special issue on measuring LGBT populations for the Journal of Official Statistics. In retirement, Bates co-chaired the National Academy of Science and Medicine consensus panel report: Measuring Sex, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation. Additionally, she was a consultant on the NIH grant awarded to Stanford University: Identifying, refining, and testing demographic questions to detect and delineate sexual and gender minority populations for populations research. Bates is an elected fellow of the American Statistical Association and enthusiastic participant in the League of Lady Statisticians. Bates obtained an M.A. in Applied Sociology from the University of Oklahoma.