Several PAA members from Michigan, as well as PAA President Eileen Crimmins and PAA Director of Government Affairs Mary Jo Hoeksema, attended the virtual presentation, introduced themselves and made brief remarks.
Senator Peters was chosen as a 2020 recipient in recognition of his leadership on several issues important to our field, including roles:
- overseeing the Census Bureau and promoting the importance of an accurate, inclusive, and cost-effective 2020 Census,
- championing funding for agencies critically important to the population sciences, especially the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institutes of Health, and Census Bureau,
- and protecting the integrity of the NSF Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate.
In addition, Senator Peters was commended for his most recent efforts to advance a bipartisan American Innovation and Competitiveness Act, oppose an untested citizenship question on the 2020 Census, promote an extension of the 2020 Census statutory reporting deadlines, and ensure the Census Bureau is considering the views of stakeholders and data users as they work to implement a disclosure avoidance system and privacy protections.
Senator Peters graciously accepted the award and remarked on the important work of PAA members, including the hub of population research and research training activities at the University of Michigan, as well as ongoing data collection efforts such as the Health and Retirement Study and Panel Study on Income Dynamics, managed by population scientists based at the university.
PAA looks forward to working with Senator Peters and his very talented, devoted staff in the next Congress on efforts to develop legislation to reauthorize the NSF as well as to ensure the delivery of accurate, reliable data from the 2020 Census and to fund the federal agencies that directly and indirectly support our field.
*The presentation was originally planned as an in-person event during the PAA 2020 Annual Meeting in Washington, which was canceled due to the pandemic.