The Heritage Foundation has named Dr. Norbert J. Michel to head the think tank’s Center for Data Analysis (CDA).

The Center’s statistics-based research addresses a wide variety of federal issues. It concentrates, however, on producing quantitative analyses of proposals addressing fiscal policy, health and welfare policy, and energy and environmental regulation.

Since 2013, Michel has worked in Heritage’s Roe Institute of Economic Policy Studies. A senior research fellow, he specialized in analyzing monetary policy and financial markets.

The promotion is “a sort of homecoming” for Michel, noted Heritage Vice President Jack Spencer. “In the CDA’s earlier days [from 2002-2005], he was its resident tax policy analyst.”

In his first stint at CDA, Michel was deeply involved in developing the Center’s number-crunching capacity, allowing it to be at the center of the dynamic scoring debate, where it used sophisticated modeling to assess legislations’ impact on the economy.

Between engagements at Heritage, Michel returned to his native Louisiana. A tenured professor at Nicholls State University, he taught finance, economics and statistics at the College of Business.

Michel holds a Ph.D. in financial economics from the University of New Orleans and a bachelor’s degree in finance and economics from Loyola University New Orleans.

The Heritage Foundation is the nation’s most broadly supported public policy research institute, with more than a half-million individual, foundation and corporate donors.