Peggy Carr

University of Maryland

Visiting Professor

Peggy G. Carr, Ph.D., is a nationally recognized leader in education statistics who served as Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) from 2021 to 2025. Appointed by President Joesph Biden, she was the first woman and first African American to hold the position. As the NCES Senior Executive, Dr. Carr oversaw the nation’s premier source of education data and became widely known as the public voice of the Nation’s Report Card (NAEP) for decades. Internationally, Carr represented the United States on collaborative organizations such as the OECD, which oversees major cross-national studies. She served as Vice Chair of the Governing Board for the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), helping guide global education comparisons. Dr. Carr is currently a Visiting Professor at University of Maryland in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology. Earlier in her career, she was Chief Statistician for the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights and a professor of statistics and research methodology at Howard University.