Karin A. Orvis is a U.S. government official and served as the chief statistician of the United States from May 2022 to July 2025.Jory Heckman. OMB names DoD’s suicide prevention director as chief statistician to lead data goals. Federal News Network, 29 April 2022 She is in charge of the Statistical Policy Branch of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
Career Orvis earned a Ph.D. in industrial and organizational psychology from George Mason University, and a college degree in psychology from Michigan State University. She was an assistant professor at Old Dominion University. She held several Department of Defense positions including the Directorship of the Transition to Veterans Program Office, which supports military service members as they become veterans, and return to civilian life. She was appointed to be the Director of the Defense Suicide Prevention Office in 2019.The Department of Defense Appoints Dr. Karin A. Orvis as New Director, Defense Suicide Prevention Office, Department of Defense news release, March 13, 2019
In April 2022 she was appointed to be Chief Statistician of the U.S. During her tenure, she oversaw the revisions to Statistical Policy Directive No. 15: Standards for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity that was published in March 2024 after an inter-governmental and public commenting process that started in 2022.
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