Merriam, Ida Craven, 1904-1997
Ida Craven Merriam was an American economist and statistician who became "one of the seminal figures in the early administration of the Social Security program." Merriam began working in Social Security in 1936, when she joined what become the Social Security Administration's Research and Statistics Bureau and rose to become head of the Bureau's Division of Coordination Studies, then Assistant Director and then Director of Research and Statistics. She retired in 1972 as Assistant Commissioner of the Office of Research and Statistics. She led studies on disability and health insurance, drafted reports for congressional committees, and directed the publication of Social Security technical studies and statistics. She was a founding member of the National Academy of Social Insurance. (Source: Wikipedia)