Debra serves as a vice president in the Economics, Justice, and Society Department where she provides management experience, technical expertise, and a broad and diverse perspective to various department projects.  She has over two decades of program management experience in all aspects of national statistical data programs, survey operations, and data governance.  Debra is a recognized expert and has provided executive leadership and strategic direction to large-scale statistical programs of national importance.

Debra provides direction, guidance, and support on project design and implementation; ensures that deliverables and other products meet quality standards; mentors project staff on designing and implementing projects; designs and conducts large- and small-scale cross-sectional and longitudinal data collection and research studies; develops technical proposals, work plans, and budgets; communicates with clients, subcontractors, and consultants; writes reports, articles, and other documents.

Prior to joining NORC, Debra served as a senior executive at the Energy Information Administration, where she led the strategic centralization of survey operations for several of EIA's energy surveys. Debra led the design, development, and implementation of the standard business process to centralize the collection and processing of several of EIA's surveys. She led a team in successfully executing a variety of activities including survey frame management, respondent outreach, non-response follow-up, and data processing. Throughout her tenure at EIA, Debra played a lead role in transitioning the existing legacy IT systems used to collect, process, and analyze energy survey data to a new IT platform designed to support standardized survey processes.