Meet the new Senior Data Scientist

I’m Angie, the new Senior Data Scientist on the DataSF team, and I’ll be working to build our new data science practice. I’m passionate about collaborating with policymakers to find ways data can help address policy problems. I’ve worked with the Labor and Defense administrations in France, local and federal financial regulators in France and the US, and immigration officials in the US, Canada, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. I also bring a background in rigorous program evaluation and causal and statistical inference from my time in academia. I’ve seen complex policy problems, messy data, and tricky political landscapes. But when there’s a chance to make an impact in people’s lives and navigate intellectually challenging questions with cool people, I keep coming back for more!

Why I’m Excited About Joining DataSF

First, the team: I’m so grateful for the support I’ve received since joining. I’m impressed by the passion and work the team has put into collecting, cleaning, and maintaining complex data. As a data scientist, this makes my job so much easier! In many of my previous jobs, I would spend days or even months chasing data. Here, I landed on an awesome team that has spent years building the pipelines required to do impactful data science work.

Second, the city: Where better than San Francisco to leverage cutting-edge tech and data tools to solve complex and meaningful policy problems? I love San Francisco’s commitment to progressive ideals and solidarity, and I’m inspired by the City’s spirit of always pushing the frontier of what’s possible.

Third, the timing: Now is the perfect time to join, with great momentum being built on the data side (thanks to a mature and growing data infrastructure) and on the policy side, with a clear commitment to data-driven evaluations and programs.

Where I See Data Science Fitting In

Our city has good data and complex problems to solve. This is where data science can help.

We can help lead departments through their data strategies and empower them to evaluate programs and build new tools relying on predictive analytics. As we build the data science practice within DataSF, our first goal will be to create and integrate data science tools into our Unified Data Platform for any user to leverage in their own work.

Maybe you have an entity resolution problem—trying to identify the same people, vehicles, addresses, or other entities across different datasets. Maybe you need predictive analysis to identify the most at-risk clients or locations. We’re planning to build a set of data science tools (entity resolution, machine learning) directly into our Unified Data Platform.

Our second goal will be to rethink how we work with departments on their most critical and complex data science projects. We can work with City staff on scoping and refining policy problems into questions that data and data science can help solve, identifying the best methods to address those problems, and developing service improvement tools to enhance how services are delivered or problems are addressed.

Learn more about DataSF.