Milda Aksamitauskas

Milda Aksamitauskas is a Health Analytics Section Chief in the Office of Health Informatics at Wisconsin Department of Health Services. She leads a team of research analysts and oversees several population health registries, population surveys, various health data integration and analysis projects, and data management activities across the Division. Milda received a master's degree in public policy degree from the University of Chicago Harris School focusing on finances and started her career as an economist at the Wisconsin Department of Revenue. Later, she moved to the health policy area at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Milda worked on policies and programs related to Medicaid’s expansion, insurance reforms, and pay for performance incentive program for providers.

Sophia Ayele

I am an evaluator for the King County Department of Community and Human Services in Seattle, Washington. I evaluate projects funded by the Best Starts for Kids (BSK) tax levy. The BSK levy will invest nearly half a billion dollars over six years in a range of early childhood and youth development projects. My role involves analyzing internal and external datasets to evaluate the success of levy investments at the program and systems level. I am also involved in developing data security policies and procedures for my department. I have a Master of Public Administration and Certificate of International Development Policy and Management. My degree program included coursework in statistics and multivariate analysis. In past roles, I have compiled and analyzed data for policy papers such as An Economy for the 1% (2016) and ‘The Indian Ocean Tsunami, 10 Years On’ (2014) and led an initiative to begin sharing Oxfam’s program evaluation data through the UK Data Service. I am proficient in Stata, have some experience with R, and have recently begun to use Python for data wrangling tasks. I also use Tableau data visualization software. In my free time, I enjoy learning languages, traveling, and growing my own food.

Flavius Badau

Flavius joined U.S.D.A.’s Economic Research Service in March 2015 after completing his Ph.D. in Applied Economics at Oregon State University. He is a Research Economist with the Agricultural Policy and Models Branch in the Market and Trade Economics Division. Flavius’ research activities focus on trends in international trade as it relates to U.S. agriculture and U.S. commodity policy modelling and projections. He is responsible for supporting the division’s baseline analysis and agricultural policy factors affecting near- and long-term prospects for the global agricultural markets. His current research centers on analyzing the performance of the agricultural sector (domestically and abroad), and investigating factors which limit trade. Previously, Flavius worked as a Credit Union Examiner for the State of Michigan and as an Adjunct Professor for Central Michigan University, Northwood University, Delta College, and Lansing Community College.

Holly Benson

Holly has served as the Director of Research, Policy, and Strategic Planning in the Office of Safety and Youth Development at the New York City Department of Education for the past five years. Currently she manages incident and suspension data for NYC public schools in addition to youth development and safety plans for almost 1,800 schools. Prior to her role as the Director, she worked as a policy and data analyst with the team she now leads. Holly began her career with the NYC DOE as a middle school mathematics teacher before leaving to pursue her MPA at the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison. While working on her degree, Holly worked as a project assistant at the Institute for Research on Poverty collecting, coding, and cleaning child support and visitation data around the state of Wisconsin. Most recently, Holly completed her Masters in Educational Leadership at CUNY Brooklyn College, where she also received her MS in Education. Holly is an aspiring school district leader focusing on suspension disproportionality and policies that improve the educational outcomes for all students.

Julie Anne Bisi

Julie Anne Bisi is aData & Accountability Coordinator at the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood (OEC).  Her work at the OEC began in December of 2013 as the program/business lead for the development and implementation of the Early Childhood Information System, as well as performing data analysis and reporting for other OEC programs and services.  She has worked for the State of Connecticut for 19 years, which include planning, analysis, and reporting positions in the Department of Social Services, Office of Policy and Management, and Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security. Prior to the state, she worked in community planning as the Director of Middlesex Coalition for Children in Middletown, CT and as a land use planner in the Community Development Office, Town of Glastonbury, CT. She has a Masters degree in Public Administration from the University of Hartford and Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Design from the University of Colorado.

Casey Blalock

Casey Blalock is a survey statistician at the Census Bureau in the Center for Administrative Records Research and Applications (CARRA) where he facilitates the use of administrative data in survey operations. Prior to joining the Census, Casey worked at Westat where he work on international surveys and USAID evaluation projects. He has a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Colorado Boulder; his research focused on international labor migration, social networks, and health disparities.

Alana Brennan

Alana Brennan, PhD, MPH, is an Instructor in the Department of Global Health and an instructor in the Department of Epidemiology at Boston University’s School of Public Health. She has over a decade of experience working in the field of public health as a project leader and statistician. Dr. Brennan’s main focus is to apply biostatistics and epidemiological methods to evaluate aspects of HIV treatment using data from large observational cohorts in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition to her dissertation work using quasi-experimental methods to assess the shift to tenofovir use in first-line antiretroviral therapy for HIV positive adults in public sector treatment programs in sub-Saharan Africa, Dr. Brennan has also been involved in key economic studies related to changing the South African national antiretroviral treatment guidelines, early vs. deferred pediatric antiretroviral treatment, and economic outcomes of patients receiving antiretroviral therapy for HIV/AIDS. Dr. Brennan is also a co-investigator and manager of a Gates-funded HIV trial evaluating a simplified clinical algorithm for identifying HIV-infected patients eligible for immediate ART initiation in South Africa and Kenya. Prior to her work in South Africa, Dr. Brennan worked for the Zambia Center for Applied Health Research and Development on the Traditional Birth Attendant Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission study focused on training birth attendants to perform rapid saliva-based HIV tests at the onset of labor and dose both the mother and child with antiretroviral drugs if the results were positive to prevent transmission to the infant. Dr. Brennan holds a PhD in epidemiology and an MPH with a concentration in epidemiology from Boston University, and a BA in biology from Knox College.

Kimberly CaraManica Zweig

Kimberly joined the New York City (NYC) Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) in 2012 as an Epidemiologist at the World Trade Center Health Registry (WTCHR). During her time at the WTCHR, she led quantitative studies of September 11, 2001 and Hurricane Sandy related health outcomes, including PTSD and depression. More recently, she served as a Data Analyst in the newly created Mental Health Innovation Lab, where she provided research and evaluation support and technical assistance to ThriveNYC initiatives, a comprehensive public health approach to mental health for NYC. Kimberly is currently a Senior Research Associate in the Health Access Equity Unit, which is focused on reducing the inequitable distribution of disease for the criminal justice involved living in the community by improving primary care’s capacity to respond to the complex and unique health and social service needs of this population. Prior to DOHMH, she worked as a Clinical Trials Coordinator at the James J. Peters VA Medical Center in the Bronx. Kimberly has an MPH in Epidemiology from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests include mental health, alcohol and substance use, trauma, and post-disaster health. 

Peter Casey

Peter is a Senior Data Scientist in the District of Columbia's Office of the Chief Technology Officer and a Fellow at The Lab @ DC. Peter plays a leading role in shaping the District's strategic vision for data science and analytics. He also supports a wide range of projects with his knowledge of social science and skills in analytics to help forecast, evaluate, and improve the effectiveness of government programs and services.

Peter joined The Lab after serving as a Data Scientist with a national political campaign, where he developed predictive models to guide decision-making and customize outreach and engagement. He has experience collaborating with end-users from a wide range of technical backgrounds to provide tools that are accessible and meet their needs. Through his years of experience working with schools and social services, Peter understands firsthand the challenges and opportunities facing local government agencies.

Peter earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from Washington University in St. Louis and an M.A. and a B.A. from Creighton University. Peter lives with his wife in Columbia Heights in DC's Ward 1.

Jamie Chandler

Jamie Chandler is the Agency Data Officer &  Data Visualization Analyst in DC Government’s Executive Office of the Mayor. He develops dashboards, data stories, and other intuitively understandable visualizations to support decision making and help the public understand city performance . Prior to joining the Mayor’s office, he taught Political Data Analytics for the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University and Political Science at City University of New York Hunter College. He completed his PhD coursework in American Politics & International Relations at CUNY Graduate Center and in Applied Statistics at Columbia University. His doctoral research focused on the dynamics of public opinion toward theKorean, Vietnam, and Iraq Wars.  Additionally, he has published research on survey methods, election forecasting, and political history. His personal interests include origami, digital art and Rock Climbing.

Jiashan Cui

Jiashan Cui is a Research Associate at the American Institutes for Research (AIR). Her primary responsibilities at AIR include co-authoring an annual report on U.S. high school dropout and completion; analyzing various sample survey and administrative records in STATA; assisting with the data collection of Public Libraries Survey; providing technical reviews on various National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) products and publications. Previously, Ms. Cui worked on consulting projects for Georgetown University, Center for Global Development and The World Bank Group. Ms. Cui holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Georgetown University.
 

Branden Dupont

Branden DuPont is a Data Analyst with the Medical College of Wisconsin and a law clerk at the Milwaukee District Attorney's Office. His work revolves around research and data focused justice system initiatives supporting the Milwaukee District Attorneys Office's Community Prosecution Unit and the Milwaukee Community Justice Council.

Dominique Duval-Diop

Dr. Dominique Duval-Diop is an accomplished economic geographer with over fifteen years of experience working in government and non-governmental organizations in the US and overseas. After receiving her Ph.D., Dominique served as a member of Governor Blanco’s executive team and later as a Senior Associate for PolicyLink, contributing to the rebuilding of the Gulf coast following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. She went on to become the Secretary General of the West African Network of Marine Protected Areas, supporting the sustainable development and resiliency of coastal communities in a 7 country region. In addition to networked governance and community-based participatory research strategies, Dominique is interested in harnessing geospatial analysis and data science tools to contribute to the development of just and equitable policies that build community capacity to overcome societal challenges. She is currently a Science & Technology Policy Fellow for the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is serving as a Gender & Social Inclusion/Geospatial Information Advisor at the Millennium Challenge Corporation. In her leisure time, Dominique enjoys practicing Shotokan Karate, oil painting and spending time with her family.

Rachel Edmonds

Rachel Edmonds is a program and management analyst at the U. S. Social Security Administration (SSA) and is currently pursuing a graduate degree in spatial analysis from Johns Hopkins University.  At SSA, Rachel is responsible for producing various Supplement Security Income (SSI) program statistical publications and reports, evaluating SSI programming and working with an assortment of researchers, government agencies and private entities to conduct SSI research.   Prior to Rachel’s work at the Social Security Administration, she served as a United States Peace Corps volunteer in Lesotho, which is landlocked by South Africa. While in service, Rachel taught high school mathematics, coordinated HIV/ AIDS awareness events, and worked with local educators to increase English literacy in the Berea district of Lesotho.

Liana Fox

Liana Fox is a research economist in the Social, Economic and Housing Statistics Division at the U.S. Census Bureau. She leads the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) research area and is engaged in an evaluation of the SPM which links household survey data to administrative records. She has published a number of papers developing and analyzing historical extensions to the Census Bureau’s SPM research. Prior to joining the Census Bureau, Fox completed her post-doctoral work at the Swedish Institute for Social Research and worked at the Columbia Population Research Center and the Economic Policy Institute. Fox earned her doctoral degree in Social Welfare from Columbia University, master’s degree in Labor Studies from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and her bachelor’s degree in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University.

Erica Garcia

Erica Garcia is employed with the Connecticut Department of Social Service, Division of Health Services, and has 21 years of experience in coordinating health programs. Currently, she oversees policy and systems operations for the Person-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) program, a Medicaid healthcare delivery system designed to support primary care practices in transforming into a modeled medical home under the standard requirements of the National Committee for Quality Assurance’s (NCQA) Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) program.  PCMH programs emphasize holistic assessment and treatment of patients, the support of social needs, the promotion of shared decision-making, and the use of continuous quality improvement.

Ms. Garcia earned a Master of Public Health with a concentration in Community Health Education from Southern Connecticut State University and has a Public Service Management Certificate from the Business Mastery Program-Executive Education at the University of Connecticut.

Vanessa Gervais

Vanessa Gervais is a Public Assistance Consultant with over 20 years of public service experience.  She is currently a Public Assistance Consultant for the State of Connecticut Department of Social Services In this capacity, she serves as a subject matter expert concerning her organization’s Tier 1 system and rules governing MAGI Medicaid & CHIP programs within the State Based Exchange.
In addition she has also served as a contract liaison for HBPO contract providing operational guidance as well policy and procedures.

Daniel Giacomi

My name is Dan Giacomi, I am an employee of the CT Department of Social Services going on ten years. I started my career in one of CT’s twelve regional offices as an eligibility intake worker. I stayed in this office working my way up through the ranks to supervisor. In 2014 I took a position as a Public Assistance Consultant in the Information Technology Division. During my tenure in IT, I started as level one support specialist and worked my way up to leading CT’s newly implemented integrated eligibility system support triage team. In May 2017 I took a began my current role as Manager of the state of Connecticut’s SNAP program. I currently live in Southington, CT with my wife, 18mth old daughter, and rescue dog Dexter.

Melvin Gutierrez

Melvin Gutierrez is a Technical Associate at MDRC. He has broad programming experience with a focus on quantitative analysis. At MDRC, he provides programming and analytical support, as well as exploring new technologies.

Mohammad Absi-Halabi

Mohammad has worked with the Government of Dubai for over 9 years focusing on high-level strategic topics including long-term city strategy, public sector reform, and public engagement. He was involved in the development of several key sectoral strategies and led a number of projects focusing on fiscal reform in the government, as well as the development and implementation of various platforms for engaging with the public. More recently, he has focused on building government capacities in data science, innovation, design thinking, and future thinking.

Prior to joining The Executive Council, Mohammad worked as a management consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton in their Middle East office where he focused on strategy development and implementation as well as reorganization and restructuring projects spanning several areas including energy, public sector, and family conglomerates.  He obtained his MBA from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, Indiana, USA, his Master of Engineering in Petroleum & Polymer Engineering from McGill University and the Institut Francais du Petrole, and his Bachelor in Engineering in Chemical Engineering from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Ethan Haymovitz

I use data analytics as part of my work for the New York City government and as part of my work developing an operational definition of child sexual abuse using concept mapping. In the past I have leveraged analytics to examine trends in homelessness in Los Angeles, examining the impact of an in-school bullying-prevention program, and in understanding the eating habits of urban teenagers.

As a doctoral candidate in social work at Millersville University, I have won numerous fellowships, including a predoctoral fellowship from the National Institute of Health. My dissertation uses multi-level modeling and regression analysis to reveal the relationship between minority stress, gender nonconformity, and mental health disparities among youth.

I use analytics to build predictive models of risk of severe child maltreatment and evaluate the effectiveness of an Enhanced Family Conferencing Initiative in New York City through my work with Chapin Hall, in collaboration with Diane DePanfilis of Hunter College at the City University of New York.

Richard Hendra

Dr. Richard Hendra (MDRC, Project Director and Principal Investigator) has played central roles in the quantitative evaluation of a range of TANF, asset building, and workforce development interventions using administrative records and other data sources. He is currently the principal investigator and/or project director on five federal and three foundation supported projects. Hendra co-leads much of MDRC’s work on big data and predictive modeling among other cross-policy area statistical and data management initiatives. Hendra has a PhD in Public Policy and has nearly 20 years of experience teaching graduate-level statistics and data management courses.
 

Susan Hernandez

Susan E. Hernandez earned a BA in Healthcare Policy from the City College of New York, a MPA from Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University, and a PhD from the University of Washington. Before beginning her doctoral work, Susan worked as the program associate for the Program in Health Care Disparities at The Commonwealth Fund, where she became inspired to pursue a PhD.  During her doctoral studies, Susan was a trainee on the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) grant and was later granted an AHRQ R36 Dissertation Award. She also worked as a research assistant on two projects for Dr. Doug Conrad: 1. evaluating the success of state and regional payment-reform efforts; and 2. patient-centered care innovations. She then worked with Dr. Paul Hebert and Dr. Chuan-Fen Liu on the national evaluation of the Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA’s) Patient Aligned Care Teams. After graduation, Susan continued her work at the VHA as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Health Services before joining the Assessment, Policy Development & Evaluation (APDE) unit at Public Health-Seattle & King County. In her short time at APDE, she has started working on the evaluation for Best Starts for Kids, a an initiative to improve the health and well-being of King County by investing in promotion, prevention and early intervention for children, youth, families, and communities.  She also respond to and track requests for data, technical assistance, and literature reviews from within the department, government agencies, university researchers, community organizations. As well as provides analysis of population health and program data to assess trends and variations by place and demographic characteristics.

Connie Heye

Connie works at the Office of Early Childhood (OEC) as an epidemiologist where she manages the data on home visiting, a state-wide program that serves pregnant women and families with young children.  This has included working with agency staff across the state to collect information on the families they serve, working with IT staff to design a computer system to house the data, and responsibility for all federal reporting.  Prior to her position at the OEC Connie spent many years consulting as a data analyst and evaluator.  Connie holds a BA from Brown University and a master’s degree (MPH) in Epidemiology/Biostatistics from the University of California at Berkeley.

Huade Huo

Huade “Howard” Huo is a research associate at American Institutes for Research (AIR) and provides expertise in statistical programming, technical review, and open source software programming. He led a start-up all-volunteer group of 5 other researchers analyzing trending educational topics with advanced analytics. His primary responsibilities at AIR include providing analytical support to the development of National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Statistics in Brief reports; developing NCES “EdSurvey” R package; and conducting technical reviews on NCES products and publications. He is also supporting the professional development of statistical and methodological topics within AIR.
 
Howard is proficient with multiple statistical or general programming languages, including R, Python and Stata. He is a certified developer for Apache Spark and an AWS Certified Solutions Architect (Associate). Before joining AIR, he was a data and modeling consultant at the World Bank Group.  He has a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Georgetown University with focusing on quantitative research methods.

Eve Jennings

Eve Jennings serves as Deputy Budget Director with the City of Chicago.
With fifteen years of experience in local government, Eve has most recently shifted into a role managing a data analytics team within the Office of Budget and Management. Her team is tasked with analyzing and reporting on the status of the City’s budget throughout the year, as well as completing management initiatives for the Mayor’s Office, using the City’s public and confidential data. These time-critical projects rely heavily on statistics, model and database building, and proficiency with reporting and visualization software.

Jenessa Malin

Jenessa Malin is a Society for Research in Child Development Fellow in the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (U.S. D.H.H.S). Her portfolio at OPRE includes research and evaluation projects related to early care and education and child welfare that inform the work of ACF offices including the Office of Head Start, Office of Child Care, and Children’s Bureau. More broadly, her research interests include infant and toddler development, poverty, parenting, and measurement. Jenessa completed her Ph.D. in Human Development with a specialization in Developmental Science and her M.A. in Measurement, Statistics, and Evaluation from the University of Maryland, College Park. She completed her B.A. in Psychology from Duke University.

Rose Martinez

Rose Martinez is a Quantitative Analyst at the Data Operations Unit of the New York City Council. Data Operations is a small but mighty unit that supports City Council’s central staff with data cleaning, visualizations, analysis, and training. Rose is the go-to person for creating maps based on data that is aggregated. Rose’s favorite aggregate type for point data is hexagonal binning. Rose attended NYU for her Bachelor’s in Metropolitan Studies and Master’s in Urban Planning.

Priti Mody-Pan

Priti Mody-Pan serves as King County, WA’s senior technical resource on organizational performance measurement, benchmarking, public performance reporting, and organizational performance reviews. Priti works closely with senior leaders and subject matter experts in the development and analysis of organizational performance metrics to advance King County’s strategic goals, especially of being the best-run government. Priti is committed to using research, evaluation, and measurement to inform programs, policies, organizational planning, and practice. Prior to working with King County, Priti was involved in early learning system building in Washington research and evaluation efforts to support diversity and inclusion in STEM education and workforce. Priti holds graduate degrees in public administration and international studies from the University of Washington and her undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis.

Craig Niiyama

Craig Niiyama is an Application Developer for the King County Department of Information Technology located in Seattle, Washington.  He ispart of the King County’s Data Services group which will be starting a new Business Intelligence Service for King County initially using Tableau and Power BI.  We hope to use data analytics to help King County use data to make solid decisions and solve problems. Craig holds an M.S. in Computer and Software Systems and B.A. in Business Administration from the University of Washington.
 

Hilary Parton

Hilary Parton first came to the NYC Health Department in 2006 as an intern in the Division of Epidemiology. She transitioned to a full-time position in the office of the Deputy Commissioner after completing her MPH at Columbia in 2007. Over the past decade, Ms. Parton has led a variety of projects requiring coordination across Health Department divisions and bureaus as well as with other city agencies and institutions. She has designed surveys, managed large and messy datasets, matched data, conducted analyses, written manuscripts, and led grants. In 2015, Ms. Parton moved into a new role with the Division of Disease Control’s Bureau of Communicable Disease to focus on syndromic surveillance and data governance. In this position, she has been responsible for introducing new methods and techniques to the syndromic surveillance unit and supporting quality assessment and analyses for a large administrative hospital billing data set. In her free time, Ms. Parton drinks too much coffee, leads a post-apocalyptic lit book club, and takes (very) long walks through all five boroughs of NYC.

Alexandra Pennington

Alexandra Pennington is a Research Associate at MDRC.  She currently serves as data manager for 3 national evaluations of workforce development interventions and is providing technical assistance around performance measurement for another workforce initiative. Over the past 11 years, she has utilized data from several sources (administrative, surveys, community-based programs, etc.) to support several aspects of MDRC's research including: to help provide a better understanding of and improve dimensions of employment and training programs; to describe and measure the dosage of services; and to measure economic effects.  Pennington holds a BA in economics, with mathematics as a second major, from the University of Notre Dame. She also holds a master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, where she concentrated in educational, social, and family policy.

Kristin Porter

Kristin Porter, who has a Ph.D. in Biostatistics from the University of California, Berkeley and an M.P.P. from the University of Chicago, has worked at MDRC for 11 years and has more than 20 years’ experience teaching and conducting research projects. As a quantitative methodologist, Porter develops methods and tools for applied researchers and for practitioners who work with data. She developed MDRC's predictive modeling framework, which involves automating the processing, cleaning and merging of large datasets, applying a variety of machine learning methods, and iterating and updating models rapidly with new information. In multiple research-practitioner partnerships in the areas of education, employment training and criminal justice, she helps institutions determine whether predictive modeling and other analytics are appropriate and valuable, assesses institutions' needs with respect to data systems and organizational capacity, and collaborates with them in implementing the predictive modeling framework and other analytics. In this role, she not only provides technical assistance related to data logistics and quantitative analyses but also related to the interpretation, communication and use of results. Porter has recently served as project direct and/or principal investigator on multiple research methodology grants from the Institute of Education Sciences at the Department of Education focused on regression discontinuity designs and multiple hypothesis testing. All these projects culminate in practice guides for applied researchers as well open-source software code and tools. She was a co-principle investigator for two projects with New Visions for Public Schools, which focused on predictive modeling and on a rapid-cycle randomized control trial (RCT) of a behavioral intervention with text messaging. She is currently a co-principle investigator a Laura and John Arnold Foundation project that is using machine learning to improve the predictive validity of a pretrial risk assessment tool used by courts in New Jersey. And, she is the lead analyst for MDRC’s researcher-practitioner partnership with the Center for Employment Opportunities, which is developing systems for predictive modeling and rapid-cycle RCTs. Porter also contributes to MDRC's research on variation in impacts in randomized control trials, on the generalizability of RCT findings, and on data visualization. Finally, she co-leads MDRC’s cross-policy area working group in charge of building capacity for predictive analytics, and she leads MDRC’s R Users Group. 

Lori Reeder

Lori has been a survey statistician in the Social, Economic and Housing Statistics Division at the U.S. Census Bureau for 6 years. She works with administrative data linked to survey data with the goals of 1) improving survey data quality and, 2) producing the SIPP Synthetic Beta, a public-use file that allows researchers to use selected variables from the Survey of Income and Program Participation linked to selected SSA earnings record and benefits record variables. Lori also has experience in harmonization of large-scale surveys. She received her PhD in Sociology from the University of Maryland in 2014.

Brandon Restrepo

Brandon Restrepo is a Research Economist in the Diet, Safety, and Health Economics Branch of the Food Economics Division at the USDA’s Economic Research Service. He mainly conducts research on food labeling, diet and health, and obesity. His recent work has investigated the health effects of major food policies such as mandatory restaurant menu labeling and restrictions on the use of partially hydrogenated oils in food service establishments. He is currently conducting studies that will throw light on the overall effectiveness of menu labeling in chain restaurants, how much taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages affect health and diet quality, and the drivers of racial gaps in childhood obesity. Before joining USDA’s Economic Research Service, he worked as a Regulatory Economist at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, where he conducted regulatory impact analyses of regulations that governed food safety, drug safety and effectiveness, and good manufacturing practices. He holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Economics from The Ohio State University and a B.S. in Economics from St. John’s University.

Carolyn Robbins

Carolyn Robbins is a public health analyst at the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), part of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). She works in the Office of Research and Evaluation, located within the Office of the Administrator, where she uses quantitative and qualitative methods to support HRSA’s bureaus and offices, conduct original research on HRSA’s programs and populations, and partner with other HHS agencies to promote health services and public health. Carolyn has a PhD in sociology from Emory University, an MPH in epidemiology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and an MA in philosophy from San Jose State University.

Andrew Schroeder

Andrew Schroeder is the Director of Data, Analytics, and Technology in the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s (DOHMH) Office of Emergency Preparedness and Response. He oversees the collection and analysis of the wide variety of data needed to support planning and response for emergency field operations that can scale to serve the over eight million residents of New York City. Andrew joined DOHMH in 2012, originally working in research and evaluation examining the results of DOHMH's exercises and responses. Previously he spent several years working for the NYC Department of Education in the central offices. He holds a BBA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in Finance, Investment, and Banking; a MA in Teaching from Johns Hopkins University; a MPA from the University of Pennsylvania; and a MA in Political Science from the CUNY Graduate Center. Andrew is originally from the Milwaukee area. Throughout his career and studies he has passionately focused on data analytics.

Elena Semenova

Elena Semenova is a Sr. Business/Data Analyst with the DC Government Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO), Washington, DC. She is a part of OCTO Data team which plays a major role in making DC Government data open and improving data flow between agencies, agencies and public. Elena works with various data in various formats for extraction and conversion to Citywide Data Warehouse,  integration and visualization in BI  applications, creates analytical reports and dashboards. Her current projects include building analytics on IoT data in Microstrategy, providing expertise and support for BI training, assisting agencies in open data initiatives.

Katie Stevens

Katie Stevens is a survey statistician in the Social, Economic and Housing Statistics Division at the U.S. Census Bureau. Her research focuses on tax and transfer programs, as well as the effect of using administrative data in place of survey data for poverty measurement. Before joining the Census Bureau, Katie was working at The Urban Institute on a number of projects, including managing a longitudinal database of child care subsidy policies and simulating tax and transfer programs in a microsimulation model. Prior to that, she received a master's degree in Public Affairs from the LBJ School at UT Austin and a bachelor's degree in Political Science and Statistics from UCLA.

Dipak Subedi

I am an Agricultural Economist in the Resource and Rural Economy Division of the USDA Economic Research Service. I am a member of the Farm Income Team (https://www.ers.usda.gov/authors/ers-staff-directory/dipak-subedi/). The USDA Farm Income Team is responsible for estimating and forecasting farm income, expenses, and financial performance measures for the U.S. farm sector. I also update the 10-year agricultural baseline model for the U.S. Farm Sector.

I received M.S. in Agricultural and Applied Economics from Texas Tech University and a B.S. in Agriculture from Himalayan College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (with a focus on Sustainable Agriculture), Kathmandu, Nepal. My research background and expertise include rural economics and federal/state survey management. I am passionate about learning and exploring the new things.

James Subudhi

James Subudhi is a Senior Quantitative Analyst with the New York City Council. He creates automation tools, develops dashboards, and analyzes data on public policy issues facing the City. He has served as an analyst to the committees on small business, veterans, technology, aging, and governmental operations, and as the briefing coordinator for the Speaker in his time with the Council.

Some of his accomplishments there include advancing the idea of racial and gender equity impact assessments, creating a project management plan to support the expansion of participatory budgeting, costing out criminal justice reform legislation, automating budget reconciliations, co-creating a dashboard on school utilization, and coordinating the financial administration of increasing funding for getting out the youth vote. While he has graduate training in SPSS and SAS he prefers working in R.

Prior to joining the Council, James was a policy advocate at the Center for Social Inclusion and WE ACT for Environmental Justice. He currently co-chairs the board of the Brooklyn Movement Center, a community based organization in Bed-Stuy. He received his Masters of Science in Urban Policy from the New School. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and toddler.

Nick Venditto

Nick is a manager in the Division of Financial Services for the Connecticut Department of Social Services. The Department of Social Services is the states lead Health and Human Services agency providing federal and state food, economic, and health benefits to over 1 million Connecticut residents. The Division of Financial Services functions as the main source of financial and administrative support for the agency.

Nick has oversight over the budget, revenue, fund management and reporting, and benefit accounting units within the division. The budget and revenue functions are among the most critical in the Department with the current budget totaling over $7.4 billion in gross expenses.

Nick earned his bachelor’s degree in business management from Southern Connecticut State University. Additionally, he has pursued further professional development opportunities including completing the University of Connecticut’s Business Mastery Program for Public Service Professionals, and the Connecticut Training and Development Network Aspiring Leaders Executive Development Program. Nick resides in Southington Connecticut with his wife Dorothy and two children, Joseph and Caitlyn.

James Wagner

James Wagner serves on Mayor G.T. Bynum’s team as the City of Tulsa’s Chief of Performance Strategy and Innovation. James leads a team that empowers the city to use data to drive toward strategic goals and lower barriers to adopting innovative practices. Their flagship program, TulStat, provides a forum for city leaders to set goals, use data to track progress and try innovative strategies. Throughout his career in local government, James has led transportation initiatives including the Bus Rapid Transit project planned for Peoria Avenue as well as the region’s bicycle and pedestrian master plan, commonly known as the GO Plan.  He is an alumni of the Mine Fellowship and serves as a trustee of the Metropolitan Tulsa Transit Authority. He is a certified city planner. He is a graduate of Oklahoma State University and Georgia Tech with degrees in Finance, City Planning and Civil Engineering.

James is a passionate Tulsan who sees the opportunities for Tulsa to become a connected, inclusive city.

He and his wife Samantha have three children.

Yan Wang

Yan Wang, Ed.D., is a Principal Researcher at the American Institutes for Research (AIR). She currently works on ED School Climate Surveys (EDSCLS), the survey questionnaires of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), NAEP Technology and Engineering Literacy (TEL) assessment, and the International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). She led teams of researchers working on survey and assessment development, data processing and reporting, and statistical analysis. She has authored many statistical analysis reports and technical chapters. Dr. Wang has a doctoral degree in Instructional Technology and Media from Teachers College, Columbia University and has more than 10 years of experience in the development of school-based questionnaires, web-based delivery systems, and computer-based assessments.

Christine Weston

I am Christine Weston and I have been working for the State of Connecticut for 8 years, most recently at the Department of Social Services, within the Division of Health Services. Prior to state-service I worked for a non-profit for 8 years.  I earned my Masters of Science with a concentration in Human Services Management in 2007.  My current work is focused on our State’s Rebalancing Initiatives in Long Term Services and Supports for recipients of CT Medicaid. I recently led User Acceptance Testing on a web-based functional assessment and have now moved the project into state-wide implementation.  My goal with all projects I work on is to make sure our members are not negatively impacted. CT Medicaid serves 750,000 members and we need to always keep those members in mind when we are designing and implementing any program.
 

Dana Wilson

Dana Wilson works as a system administrator for the Illinois Department of Corrections which uses Offender360.  This is a cloud-based inmate tracking and management system built on a Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online platform.  She continues to be a part of the integration of additional IDOC applications to this cloud based system along with regular builds, deployments and upgrades.  She started with the Department of Corrections in January of 2017.  Prior to this position she worked at the Illinois Department of Public Health as a System Administrator for SIREN (State of Illinois Rapid Electronic Notification System).  During her career at Public Health she helped with the successful system migration from a SharePoint based RM System to the Intermedix CORE HAN System which integrates with WEBEOC, EICS, EMRESOURCE and other platforms used by the Office of Preparedness and Response.  She has successfully completed her Incident Command Training through the Emergency Management Institute and FEMA and was an Intelligence Analyst in the United States Army.

Josh Wolff

Josh Wolff is the open data program manager for the City of Cambridge, MA. In this role, he works with city departments and leadership to supply the public with municipal data, engage civic tech partners, and strategically leverage data for policymaking performance measurement. Josh also provides departments throughout the city with data analysis support and training. Before joining Cambridge, he worked as an environmental consultant and energy researcher. He has a master’s degree in technology policy from MIT and a bachelor’s degree in economics from UVM.

Jin Yao

Jin Yao joined the Department of Technology and Innovation at Johnson County, Kansas as a Human Services Data Analyst in February 2017. Her role is to support various data analysis projects for the human services departments. Before joining the county, Jin was a Computational Biologist (Bioinformatics) at US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service; an Ecoinformatics Specialist at New Mexico State University; and an Assistant Professor of Biology at Adams State University, CO. She holds a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in Ecology from Nanjing University, China, and a doctoral degree (PhD) in Ecology from University of Kansas.