John Thompson (1951 – 2025)
IAOS joins the international official statistical community in acknowledging the huge contribution of John Thompson, former Director of the US Census Bureau and a former IAOS member who passed away on May 9, 2025, at the age of 73.
John had a key role in US Censuses, and so influenced the work of many NSOs in innovations in census taking. This included helping to pioneer the use of the then state-of-the-art technology in optical scanning and intelligent character recognition in the 2000 Census. After a period at NORC at the University of Chicago, returning to the Census Bureau in 2013, when he was appointed the 24th Director of the Census overseeing preparations for the 2020 Census. He served in this crucial role from 2013 -2017.
John was an elected fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA) and past chair of its Social Statistics Section and Committee on Fellows, and had also served on US Committee on National Statistics at the National Academy of Sciences.
A fuller tribute from the US Bureau of the Census can be found at https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/director/2025/05/remembering-john-h-thompson.html
Our sincerest condolences to John’s family, friends and former colleagues at this time.
