Patil coined the term ‘data scientist’.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: The White House has named Dhanurjay “DJ” Patil as “Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Data Policy and Chief Data Scientist” in the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy.
According to a post on the White House blog, as Chief Data Scientist, Patil 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.
Patil will also work on the administration’s “Precision Medicine Initiative,” which focuses on utilizing health care data to provide clinicians with new tools and knowledge to best treat their patients.
Prior to joining president Barack Obama’s administration, Patil fostered his career as a data scientist — a term he helped coin — in the public and private sectors and in academia. Most recently, he served as the Vice President of Product at RelateIQ, which was acquired by Salesforce.
Patil also 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.”
Patil has authored a number of influential articles and books explicating the potential applications of data science, and holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of California, San Diego, as well as a PhD in applied mathematics from the University of Maryland College Park.