Ed Mierzwinski (Board Chair) is the Consumer Program Director and Senior Director of the Federal Consumer Program at U.S. PIRG. Mierzwinski has worked in the Washington, DC-based federal lobbying office of the Federation of State Public Interest Research Groups (U.S. PIRG) since 1989. He often lectures or testifies before Congress, state legislatures and agencies on a wide range of consumer issues, from credit card rates and privacy to product safety and airline passenger rights. He has been involved in all significant Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) policy amendments since 1989. He has published reports on numerous consumer issues, including Big Data’s impact on financial opportunity, the CFPB Public Consumer Complaint Database, internet privacy, identity theft and credit reporting mistakes. He is the co-author of a Model State Data Breach, Security Freeze and Identity Theft Law, available on SSRN. He has had recent articles in the American Prospect the Journal of Consumer Affairs and the Suffolk University Law Review.
He is a 2003 recipient of Privacy International’s “Brandeis Award” for privacy protection efforts and a 2006 recipient of the Consumer Federation of America’s “Esther Peterson Consumer Service Award.” He is also formerly a member of the Consumer Reports’ Board of Directors.
Mierzwinski sits on the board of directors of the Consumer Federation of America. He chairs the Americans for Financial Reform Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Task Force. Mierzwinski is a founding and current member of the Steering Committee of the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (tacd.org), and is on the board of directors of Flyersrights.org. Also, he is a former member of the Federal Reserve Board’s Consumer Advisory Council. Mierzwinski is a graduate of the University of Connecticut (BA, MS) and previously was Executive Director of the Connecticut PIRG.