Katherine Lotspeich, Chief, Office of Performance and Quality

Katherine Lotspeich became chief of the Office of Performance and Quality (OPQ) in September 2020. She had served as the deputy chief for OPQ since 2018, leading teams that estimate receipt volume and staffing projections and analyze enterprise data.

Experience and Achievements

Before becoming deputy chief of OPQ, Lotspeich  was deputy chief for the Immigration Records and Identity Services Directorate’s Verification Division where she oversaw the E-Verify and SAVE programs. She was the division’s acting chief for 18 months and briefly served as the first E-Verify Outreach branch chief.

Lotspeich started her USCIS career in 2004, with the Office of Citizenship, where she helped redesign the naturalization test.

Before joining USCIS, Lotspeich was a research associate at the Urban Institute’s Immigration Studies Program. She also worked for the U.S. Information Agency in Washington, D.C., and the American Councils for International Education in Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia on the Future Leaders Exchange program, a J-1 visa academic exchange program for secondary school students.

Education

Lotspeich has a bachelor’s degree in international relations from George Washington University and a master’s degree in policy studies from Johns Hopkins University.