Burman named to advisory committee within the Commerce Department
Leonard Burman, Paul Volcker Chair in Behavioral
Economics and senior research associate at the Center of Policy Research within
Syracuse University’s Maxwell School for Citizenship and Public, has been
appointed by the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis to its
Advisory Committee on Data for Evidence Building within the U.S., a newly
formed committee promoting expanded access to federal data.
The committee will review, analyze, and
make recommendations on how to promote efficient use and sharing of federal
data that supports evidence building for policymakers. The committee consists
of representatives from federal, state, and local governments, and experts in data
policy, privacy, technology, transparency, and evaluation and research
methodology. The committee will present recommendations to the director of the
Office of Management and Budget and propose pilot projects to improve access
and integration of data use across agencies while protecting privacy.
A tax-policy expert, Burman is an
Institute Fellow at the Urban Institute. He leads a team of researchers working
with the IRS to create public synthetic datasets representing the wealth of
data reported on income tax returns and information returns. The team is
currently developing a way for researchers to remotely access confidential tax
data for statistical analysis while protecting taxpayer privacy. In 2002, he co-founded
the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings
Institution. He served as the deputy assistant secretary for Tax Analysis at
the Treasury Department and was a senior analyst at the Congressional Budget
Office for nine years. He is past-president of the National Tax Association
(NTA), 2016 recipient of the NTA’s Davie-Davis Award for Public Service, and a
fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Burman
received a Ph.D in economics from the University of Minnesota and a B.A. from
Wesleyan University.
Also serving on the committee is alumnus
Charles Cutshall '07 BA (IR)/'09 MPA, who has experience leading and
transforming privacy programs. Cutshall was previously named the chief privacy
officer for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Read more about his appointment here.
Sarah Forland, M.S. Public Relations Candidate | M.A.
International Relations Candidate
09/21/20