Dan Doonan

Dan Doonan is the executive director of the National Institute on Retirement Security (NIRS). With the Board of Directors, Doonan leads the organization’s strategic planning, retirement research, and education initiatives.

Doonan has more than 20 years of experience working on retirement issues from different vantage points, including as an analyst, consultant, trainer, and even a plan trustee. In these various roles, the consistent theme has been his belief that Americans have a shared interest in creating and maintaining a resilient retirement infrastructure that provides adequate financial support in an efficient manner. He comes to NIRS after serving as a senior pension specialist with the National Education Association. There he co-authored Characteristics of Large Public Education Pension Plans, a detailed report that is considered to be a definitive resource of information about large public education retirement plans.

Doonan began his career at the Department of Labor as a mathematical statistician. He then spent seven years performing actuarial analysis with Buck Consultants in its retirement practice. His experience also includes positions as a research director and labor economist. Doonan holds a bachelor’s of science in Mathematics from Elizabethtown College and is a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance.