A CONVERSATION WITH NORWOOD,JANET,L

Janet L. Norwood was born in Newark, New Jersey, on December 11, 1923. She was an undergraduate at Douglass College of Rutgers University fr om 1941 to 1945 and went on to do graduate studies in economics at Tuf ts University, from which she received the M.A. (1946) and Ph.D. (1949 ) degrees. She taught briefly at Wellesley College in 1948 and 1949. S everal years later, in 1963, she joined the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and remained a member of its staff for 28 years. From 1979 to 1 991 she headed the agency as Commissioner of Labor Statistics, serving under both Democratic and Republican presidents. On her retirement fr om BLS in 1991, a U.S. senator characterized her as a ''national treas ure.'' She is now a Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute in Washington . Her contributions to BLS and to the federal government more broadly have been widely recognized by the government, by professional societi es and by universities. For example, in 1979 she received the Philip A rnow award, the highest award given by the Department of Labor, the Ju lius Shishkin Award from the Washington Statistical Society in 1986 an d was chosen as the 1990 Statistician of the Year by the Chicago Chapt er of the American Statistical Association. Norwood has also received honorary degrees from Carnegie Mellon University and Florida Internati onal University. Norwood was President of the American Statistical Ass ociation in 1989 and has served as a member of the board of directors of several professional associations. She was chair of the Board of Tr ustees of the National Institute of Statistical Sciences in 1992 and 1 993, and she is a member of the Committee on National Statistics at th e National Research Council and of the Editorial Advisory Board of Cha nce.