Experts

Linda Jacobsen is vice president of domestic programs at PRB. She is a demographer with more than 25 years of experience analyzing population trends and their implications for professional, policy, media, and general audiences. Her research has focused on family and household demography, population estimates and projections, and poverty and inequality. She has extensive research experience with the American Community Survey (ACS), and drafted two handbooks for understanding and using ACS data for the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey Office. Jacobsen is chair of the Government and Public Affairs Committee of the Population Association of America, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics. She has been a featured speaker on U.S. demographic trends at the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and at Harvard University's Program for Newly Elected Members of Congress. She has also been interviewed on NBC, CBS, CNN, and NPR, as well as by many newspapers including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune. Prior to joining PRB in 2005, Jacobsen was a senior executive and chief demographer for two leading marketing information companies; the research director at American Demographics magazine; and a faculty member at Cornell University and the University of Iowa, where she conducted research and taught graduate studies in sociology and demography. She holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a bachelor's in sociology from Reed College.