Constance Ann Forbes Citro (born June 9, 1942) is an American political scientist and

statistician A statistician is a person who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, and statisticians may wor ...

. She is the former director of the Committee on National StatisticsCommittee on National Statistics
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National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (also known as NASEM or the National Academies) are the collective scientific national academy of the United States. The name is used interchangeably in two senses: (1) as an umbrell ...

and works as a senior scholar for the Committee on National Statistics.

Education and career

Constance Ann Forbes was born on June 9, 1942, in St. Louis, Missouri, to Gilbert B. Forbes, a

pediatrician Pediatrics ( also spelled ''paediatrics'' or ''pædiatrics'') is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, paediatrics covers many of their youth until the ...

, and Grace Moehlman Forbes. She was the granddaughter of Baptist minister and theological scholar

Conrad Henry Moehlman Conrad Henry Moehlman (May 26, 1879 – September 19, 1961) was an American professor of church history at Colgate Rochester Divinity School, where he was emeritus professor. A Baptist and known as Liberal Christianity, theologically liberal, he w ...

. She studied political science as an undergraduate at the University of Rochester, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1963. Her father was on the faculty of the U of R Medical School, and numerous relatives were graduates, including both her parents, her late husband, Joseph F. Citro (1941-2020), whom she married on June 19, 1965, and their son Jeremy F. Citro. She went to Yale University for a master's degree and Ph.D. in political science, studying under

James David Barber James David Barber (July 31, 1930 – September 12, 2004) was a political scientist whose book ''The Presidential Character'' made him famous for his classification of presidents through their worldviews. From 1977 to 1995, he taught political sci ...

. Citro joined the Committee on National Statistics in 1984 and directed the committee from 2004 to 2017. She was previously vice president of Mathematica Policy Research, vice president of Data Use and Access Laboratories (DUALabs), and social science analyst with the US Census Bureau.

Recognition

Citro became a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 1987. She is an elected member of the

International Statistical Institute The International Statistical Institute (ISI) is a professional association of statisticians. It was founded in 1885, although there had been international statistical congresses since 1853. The institute has about 4,000 elected members from gov ...

. She won the 1997 Roger Herriot Award for Innovation in Federal Statistics, for contributions including directing panel studies on poverty measurement,

microsimulation Microsimulation (from microanalytic simulation or microscopic simulation) is a category of computerized analytical tools that perform highly detailed analysis of activities such as highway traffic flowing through an intersection, financial transact ...

for social welfare programs, and the 1990 and 2000 censuses. She also won the Waksberg Award in survey methodology in 2014. In 2018 the American Statistical Association established an annual award, the Links Lecture Award, "to honor the contributions of Constance Citro, Robert Groves, and Fritz Scheuren".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Citro, Constance F. 1942 births Living people American women statisticians University of Rochester alumni Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Elected Members of the International Statistical Institute Fellows of the American Statistical Association American women political scientists American political scientists 21st-century American women