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Dr. DJ Patil as the First U.S. Chief Data Scientist

 

White House Names DJ Patil as the First US Chief Data Scientist

Feb, 18, 2015

The White House has named DJ Patil its first ever Chief Data Scientist and Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Data Policy at the White House. President Obama has prioritized bringing top technical talent like DJ into the federal government to harness the power of technology and innovation to help government better serve the American people.

Across our great nation, we’ve begun to see an acceleration of the power of data to deliver value. From early open data work by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which provides data that enables weather forecasts to come directly to our mobile phones, to powering GPS systems that feed geospatial data to countless apps and services — government data has supported a transformation in the way we live today for the better.

DJ joins the White House following an incredible career as a data scientist — a term he helped coin — in the public and private sectors, and in academia. Most recently, DJ served as the Vice President of Product at RelateIQ, which was acquired by Salesforce. DJ also previously held positions at LinkedIn, Greylock Partners, Skype, PayPal, and eBay. Prior to his work in the private sector, DJ worked at the Department of Defense, where he directed new efforts to bridge computational and social sciences in fields like social network analysis to help anticipate emerging threats to the United States.

As Chief Data Scientist, DJ will help shape policies and practices to help the U.S. remain a leader in technology and innovation, foster partnerships to help responsibly maximize the nation’s return on its investment in data, and help to recruit and retain the best minds in data science to join us in serving the public. DJ will also work on the Administration’s Precision Medicine Initiative, which focuses on utilizing advances in data and health care to provide clinicians with new tools, knowledge, and therapies to select which treatments will work best for which patients, while protecting patient privacy.

As part of the CTO team, DJ will work closely with colleagues across government, including the Chief Information Officer and U.S. Digital Service. DJ’s work will also include data science leadership on the Administration’s momentum on open data and data science.

Over the past six years, the Obama administration has made historic progress in this area. In addition to making more than 138,000 data sets available to the public for innovation and entrepreneurship, the Administration is also empowering Americans with secure access to their personal data and expanding our capacity to process and examine large and complex datasets. Utilizing data for innovation holds amazing potential for the future of our country.

DJ’s work will help ensure government remains effective and innovative for the American public in our increasingly digital world. We welcome DJ to our team..... By Megan Smith: is the U.S. Chief Technology Officer.

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2014 Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum
- Co-author of HBR article --Data Scientist: The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century
- Forbes -- The World's 7 Most Powerful Data Scientists (http://onforb.es/A50k9w)
- Fortune -- The hot tech gig of 2022 (http://bit.ly/y5GRy6)
- Fast Company cover story Jan 2012 (http://bit.ly/MQ0UvI)
- CNN -- 36 of tech's most powerful disruptors (http://cnnmon.ie/ReeMyF)
- Co-coined the term "Data Scientist"
- Fortunate to have spoken at 3 commencements

Specialties: Product Management, Strategy, Systems Architecture, Social network analysis, Social networking, Negotiations, Conflict resolution, General Management, Emergence Theory, Chaos & Nonlinear Dynamics, International Policy, High Performance Computing, Advanced Statistical Techniques, Risk Management, Marketing, Visualization of Complex Data, Human Computer Interaction, Machine Learning, Information Retrieval, Data Mining.

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Honors & Awards

Young Global Leader

World Economic Forum
January 2014

The Forum of Young Global Leaders is a unique, multistakeholder community of more than 900 young leaders organized by the World Economic Forum http://www.weforum.org/community/forum-young-global-leaders

The World's 7 Most Powerful Data Scientists

Forbes

http://onforb.es/A50k9w

Gen Flux Cover Story

Fast Company
January 2012

http://bit.ly/MQ0UvI

36 of tech's most powerful disruptors

CNN
2012

http://cnnmon.ie/ReeMyF

Commencement Speaker - University of Maryland CMNS

University of Maryland
May 2012

One of the highlights of my career was to give the commencement where I did my doctorate and was faculty. The full speech can be found here: http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130521100832-4933865-class-of-2013-why-i-m-counting-on-you-to-fail

Commencement Speaker University of California, Berkeley, School of Informaiton

University of California, Berkeley, School of Informaiton
May 2013

Full speech can be found here: http://www.fastcompany.com/3009979/the-takeaway/seek-out-those-that-will-take-a-risk-on-you-dj-patils-inspired-commencement-spe

Commencement Speaker - University of California, Santa Cruz

University of California, Santa Cruz
June 2014

Full speech and video can be found here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20140616064454-4933865-fight-for-yes?trk=prof-post

AAAS, Science and Technology Policy Fellow

American Association for the Advancement of Science
September 2004

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Science and Technology Policy Fellowship 2004 Science and Technology Policy Fellows are a prestigious group of scientists selected by AAAS (publishers of the journal Science) to assist the U.S. Government on major policy issues for up to two years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DJ Patil i holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of California, San Diego, and a PhD in applied mathematics from the University of Maryland College Park. DJ has also authored a number of influential articles and books explaining the important current and potential applications of data science.

As a doctoral student and faculty member at the University of Maryland, DJ used open datasets published by NOAA to make major improvements in numerical weather forecasting.