Lori Lucas is now the head of a think tank that shapes how people in Washington think about health insurance and retirement savings programs.
The board of the Employee Benefit Research Institute has named her to be the group's new president and chief executive officer.
Lucas succeeds Harry Conaway, who has been EBRI's interim president since 2015.
EBRI is a Washington-based research institute that was founded in 1978. Both Republicans and Democrats rely on EBRI's survey data and economic analyses to understand how employers' benefits programs are working, or not working.
In recent years, for example, EBRI reports have helped policymakers' understand how workers have been using health savings accounts, and how many workers in each age group have started preparing for retirement.
The group's reports influence federal work on individual retirement accounts and other individual retirement savings programs as well as federal efforts to improve employer-sponsored retirement plans.
The Future
Lucas said in a statement that she'd like to see EBRI do research on financial security benefits, such as student loan benefits and emergency fund benefits, as well as on traditional health and retirement benefits.
