Linda is Chief Mathematical Statistician and Director of Research and Development of USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). She works with others within and outside of NASS to continually improve the methodology underpinning the Agency’s collection and dissemination of data on every facet of U.S. agriculture. 

After obtaining her Ph.D. in Statistics from Oklahoma State University, Linda served on the faculties of three land grant universities: Oklahoma State University, University of Nebraska, and the University of Florida. She has been active in statistics education from kindergarten through post doctorate training. A major component of her research work has been collaborative with researchers in the agricultural, ecological, environmental, and medical sciences. Her recent research has focused on the use of open source data, capture-recapture methodology, and integrated survey and non-survey data to produce survey estimates. Linda has authored or co-authored three books and more than 100 publications in over 50 different journals, constituting a mixture of statistics and subject-matter journals. 

Linda is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute (ISI), a fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA) and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She has been the editor of the Journal of Agricultural, Biological and Environmental Statistics, and served in a broad range of offices within the professional statistical societies, including the ISI, IBS, ASA and NISS.