Rayid Ghani

About Rayid Ghani

Rayid Ghani is the Director of the Center for Data Science & Public Policy and a Senior Fellow at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and the Computation Institute. Rayid is a reformed computer scientist and wannabe social scientist, but mostly just wants to increase the use of data-driven approaches in solving large public policy and social challenges. Among other areas, Rayid works with governments and nonprofits in policy areas such as health, criminal justice, education, public safety, economic development, and urban infrastructure. Rayid is also passionate about teaching practical data science and started the Eric & Wendy Schmidt Data Science for Social Good Fellowship at UChicago that trains computer scientists, statisticians, and social scientists from around the world to work on data science problems with social impact. Rayid also teaches data science and machine learning class at Harris and is actively involved in the joint Computer Science and Public Policy Master program at the University of Chicago.

Before joining the University of Chicago, Rayid was the Chief Scientist of the Obama 2012 Election Campaign where he focused on data, analytics, and technology to target and influence voters, donors, and volunteers. Previously, Rayid was a Research Scientist and led the Machine Learning Group at Accenture Labs. Rayid did his graduate work in Machine Learning at Carnegie Mellon University and is actively involved in organizing data science related conferences and workshops. In his ample free time, Rayid works with nonprofits to help them with their data, analytics, and digital efforts and strategy.

A longer profile and publications can be found at http://www.rayidghani.com