Census Bureau Director Robert Groves is leaving the agency to become provost of Georgetown University, he announced in a Tuesday blogpost.
He will assume the new position in August after three years of leading the agency responsible for counting the total U.S. population every 10 years.
Groves is not the only federal official to leave public service for academia in the last six months.
In November, Dan Gordon took up a position as associate dean for government contracts law at George Washington University after nearly two years as administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy.
At the time of Groves’ nomination in 2009, he was a professor at the University of Michigan and director of its survey research center.
He has also been a research professor for the University of Maryland’s joint program in survey methodology.
Under his leadership, the bureau re-established its research directorate and launched an 8-node research network at universities in partnership with the National Science Foundation.
The bureau is also reducing its number of regional field offices from 12 to 6, he wrote.
Groves added that the bureau’s information technology leadership launched an internal social media tool and has built a private cloud.
In a separate blogpost, Deputy Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank wrote that the bureau completed the 2010 Census $1.9 billion under budget and on time.
Blank added that Groves helped form the strategy for the 2010 Census and launch an employee-led program intended to shore up operational efficiency.
