The Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) and the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy recently announced that former Congressional Budget Office (CBO) directors Rudolph Penner, Robert Reischauer, and Alice Rivlin have been jointly selected as the 2016 winners of the Peter H. Rossi Award.

The announcement credited them with “establish[ing] the standards under which the Congressional Budget Office still operates and, in doing so, created a firm foundation of independence and evidence-based objectivity. Individually, as well, they have made numerous powerful and sustained contributions to program evaluation, policy analysis, and policymaking.”

Penner, an institute fellow at the Urban Institute and a member of the MDRC Board of Directors, directed the CBO from 1983 to 1987. Reischauer, president emeritus of the Urban Institute and former chair of MDRC’s Board of Directors, led CBO from 2000 to 2012. Rivlin is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a visiting professor at Georgetown University. She was the founding director of the CBO (1975-1983) and later served as director of the federal Office of Management and Budget from 1993 to 1996.

“On behalf of MDRC’s Board and staff, I congratulate Rudy, Bob, and Alice on this significant and well-deserved honor,” said Gordon Berlin, MDRC President. “Our nation has been — and continues to be — the beneficiary of their contributions to government service and to the high standards they have set for independent and objective policy analysis.”

Drs. Penner, Reischauer, and Rivlin will receive the award and present a guest lecture on Friday, November 4, at APPAM’s Fall Research Conference in Washington, DC.