DJ Patil

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DJ Patil
Dhanurjay Patil
DJ Patil in 2021
DJ Patil in 2021
Chief Data Scientist of the United States Office of Science and Technology Policy
In office
2015–2017
PresidentBarack Obama
Preceded byOffice created
Personal details
RelationsSuhas Patil (father)
University of California, San Diego (BA)
University of Maryland College Park (PhD)

Dhanurjay "DJ" Patil (born August 3, 1974) is an American mathematician and computer scientist who served as the Chief Data Scientist of the United States Office of Science and Technology Policy from 2015 to 2017. He is chief technology officer at Devoted Health and a general partner at GreatPoint Ventures.

Before his government service, Patil held roles as Head of Data Products and Chief Scientist at LinkedIn, Chief Product Officer of Color Labs, and Vice President of Product at RelateIQ, which was acquired by Salesforce.com. At LinkedIn he co-coined the term "data scientist" in 2008 with Jeff Hammerbacher, then head of analytics at Facebook. While a data-scientist-in-residence at Greylock Partners, he produced Building Data Science Teams (2011) and Data Jujitsu: The Art of Turning Data into Product (2012), both published by O'Reilly Media.

As Chief Data Scientist, Patil launched the Police Data Initiative and the Data-Driven Justice Initiative, using open data to increase police accountability and reform pre-trial incarceration, and worked on the Precision Medicine Initiative to build a national genomic database for disease research. For this work he received the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service. His father is Suhas Patil, a computer scientist and the founder of Cirrus Logic.

Early life and education

Patil attended Kennedy Middle School, Monta Vista High School and De Anza College, all in Cupertino, California.[1][2] While at Kennedy, he participated in a student exchange program, visiting Toyokawa, Cupertino's sister city in Japan, in 1988. In high school, he often got into trouble and graduated in 1992 near the bottom of his class. He followed his girlfriend to De Anza Community College, which he attended for one year.[3] He earned a B.A. in mathematics from Earl Warren College[4] at the University of California, San Diego. He received an M.A. (1999) and PhD (2001) in applied mathematics from the University of Maryland College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences.[5][6] As a faculty member, his research focused on nonlinear dynamics and chaos theory; he also helped start a research initiative on numerical weather prediction.[5]

Career

Patil has held positions at LinkedIn, Greylock Partners, Skype, PayPal, and eBay.

Early career

In 2004, Patil worked in the Advanced Systems and Concepts Office in the Department of Defense, serving as project leader for the Threat Anticipation Project.[7] His role was to anticipate threats connected to terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and failed states, employing social network analysis to help anticipate these threats.[8][9][2] Patil described himself as part of "the second wave of people" who would use data to detect signals, a concern that grew following the September 11 attacks.[10]

At LinkedIn, Patil co-coined the term "data scientist" in 2008 with Jeff Hammerbacher, then head of analytics at Facebook.[11]

While a data-scientist-in-residence at Greylock Partners in 2011, Patil produced Building Data Science Teams, published by O'Reilly Media.[12] The book offers strategies for creating data science teams in business and technology. In 2012, also at Greylock, he wrote Data Jujitsu: The Art of Turning Data into Product, also published by O'Reilly Media,[13] and co-authored an article with Thomas H. Davenport in the Harvard Business Review titled "Data Scientist: The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century".[11]

Chief Data Scientist (2015–2017)

On February 18, 2015, the White House announced Patil would be the first U.S. Chief Data Scientist, with the full title Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Data Policy and Chief Data Scientist.[14][15][16] In public addresses, Patil stated: "The mission of the U.S. Chief Data Scientist, simply put, is to responsibly unleash the power of data to benefit all Americans."[17]

In a memorandum dated February 20, 2015, entitled "Unleashing the Power of Data to Serve the American People", Patil set out four goals for the role: providing vision on how to maximize the social return on federal data; creating nationwide data policies to enable shared services and forward-leaning practices; working with agencies to establish best practices for data management and long-term database sustainability; and recruiting data science talent for public service to bridge government, academia, and industry.[18]

In his tenure, Patil helped launch the Police Data Initiative and the Data-Driven Justice Initiative, and worked on the Precision Medicine Initiative.[19] His work in the Obama administration was described in Michael Lewis's books The Fifth Risk (2018) and Premonition (2021).[5] At the end of his tenure, he received the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the highest honor the department awards to civilians.[5]

Law enforcement data initiatives

In 2015, the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing, initiated in response to the 2014 Ferguson shootings, encompassed both the Police Data Initiative and the Data-Driven Justice Initiative.[10]

The Police Data Initiative aimed to build trust between police and their communities by releasing datasets on "stops and searches, uses of force, officer-involved shootings, or other police actions."[20] Open data was also intended to increase police accountability, and the initiative gathered 126 jurisdictions.[21] Police departments struggled to release their data because it was not "collected well", as Patil noted in an interview, and disorganized datasets had prevented accurate assessments.[10] Patil argued this stemmed from the absence of a dedicated technician to organize the data, and efforts were made to improve coding capabilities of police superintendents and to standardize data organization across the 18,000 participating jurisdictions.[22][23] More than 170 datasets were released at the start of the initiative in 2015.[20]

The Data-Driven Justice Initiative (DDJ) aimed to help county and state governments filter low-level offenders and those with mental illness away from the broader criminal justice system, and to reform pre-trial incarceration so that low-risk offenders who cannot afford bail serve shorter jail terms. At its launch in 2015, more than 91 million people were covered by the DDJ.[24][21]

Precision Medicine Initiative

Patil worked on the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI), which aimed to build the largest database of genomic information to improve understanding of cancer treatments, chronic disease, and rare diseases.[25] The initiative addressed the absence of a dataset enabling cross-gender and cross-ethnic analyses. A key issue Patil worked on was public trust;[10] he developed workshops and "listening sessions" to gather concerns about the initiative and used the feedback to devise "privacy and trust principles", the first of which states that "data access, use, and sharing should be permitted for authorized purposes only."[26]

Patil expressed concern about the effect of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) on the PMI, arguing that people would be reluctant to donate genomic information if it could expose pre-existing conditions. He acknowledged existing protections under the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA, enacted 2008) but worried the act would not be consistently applied.[27]

Post-government career

Patil was a member of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council before resigning in August 2017.[28]

In October 2017, Patil joined the executive team of Devoted Health as chief technology officer.[29][30] On November 14, 2017, he announced he was joining the American venture capital firm Venrock as an adviser.[31] He also served as a founding board member of Crisis Text Line, a nonprofit providing on-demand crisis support via text messaging, and is a member of the Defense Science Board.[5] He advised on the Biden–Harris presidential transition.[30] In February 2023, Patil became a general partner at GreatPoint Ventures.[30]

Personal life

Patil's father is Suhas Patil, a computer scientist and the founder of Cirrus Logic.[6]

See also

References

  1. Matt O'Brien (February 18, 2015). "White House taps Silicon Valley's DJ Patil as data chief". The Mercury News. Archived from the original on February 21, 2015. Retrieved February 21, 2015.
  2. Robert Safian (January 9, 2012). "Generation Flux: DJ Patil". Fast Company. Archived from the original on July 16, 2024. Retrieved February 21, 2015.
  3. "How I Became Chief Data Scientist". De Anza College. Archived from the original on July 12, 2020. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  4. "Alumni Weekend: Conversation with DJ Patil '96". calendar.ucsd.edu. Archived from the original on November 21, 2017. Retrieved November 20, 2017.
  5. "Beyond the Prompt: The AI Transformation in Classrooms, Living Rooms and the White House". University of Maryland Events Calendar. Archived from the original on March 14, 2026. Retrieved May 25, 2026.
  6. Anath, Venkat (February 19, 2015). "Who is D.J. Patil, the first US chief data scientist?". Mint. Archived from the original on November 28, 2017. Retrieved November 19, 2017.
  7. Jayakumar, Amrita (March 29, 2015). "The White House's first chief data scientist is no stranger to Washington". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on December 1, 2017. Retrieved November 20, 2017.
  8. "Threat Anticipation Project Overview" (PDF). Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2017. Retrieved November 20, 2017.
  9. Jessi Hempel (February 18, 2015). "White House Names DJ Patil as the First US Chief Data Scientist". Wired. Archived from the original on February 20, 2015. Retrieved February 21, 2015.
  10. "Full transcript: Chief Data Scientist DJ Patil of the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy on Recode Decode". Recode. Vox Media. December 28, 2016. Archived from the original on December 1, 2017. Retrieved November 20, 2017.
  11. Davenport, Thomas H.; Patil, D.J. (October 2012). "Data Scientist: The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century". Harvard Business Review. Archived from the original on May 22, 2026. Retrieved May 25, 2026.
  12. "Building Data Science Teams". O'Reilly. O'Reilly Media. Archived from the original on November 19, 2017. Retrieved November 19, 2017.
  13. "Data Jujitsu: The Art of Turning Data into Product". O'Reilly. O'Reilly Media. Archived from the original on November 23, 2017. Retrieved November 19, 2017.
  14. "The White House Names Dr. DJ Patil as the First U.S. Chief Data Scientist". whitehouse.gov. February 18, 2015. Archived from the original on July 16, 2024. Retrieved November 20, 2017 – via National Archives.
  15. Elizabeth Dwoskin (February 19, 2015). "White House Names Nation's First Chief Data Scientist". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on February 21, 2015. Retrieved February 21, 2015.
  16. Arun Kumar (February 20, 2015). "Indian-American DJ Patil named as first US chief data scientist". The Economic Times. Archived from the original on February 21, 2015. Retrieved February 21, 2015.
  17. "United States Chief Data Scientist DJ Patil: Big Data and You". Commonwealth Club. May 6, 2016. Retrieved November 20, 2017 – via YouTube.
  18. Obama White House (February 20, 2015). "Unleashing the Power of Data to Serve the American People". Medium. Archived from the original on December 1, 2017. Retrieved November 20, 2017.
  19. "An Exit Interview With U.S. Chief Data Scientist DJ Patil". Science Friday. Archived from the original on July 16, 2024. Retrieved September 22, 2017.
  20. Davis, Ron L.; Austin, Roy L.; Patil, DJ (October 13, 2016). "Growing Number of Communities are Using Data to Improve Policing and Criminal Justice". whitehouse.gov. Archived from the original on September 26, 2017. Retrieved November 17, 2017 – via National Archives.
  21. "A Six Month Update on How We've Been Using Data, and How it Benefits All Americans". DigitalGov. U.S. General Services Administration. August 20, 2015. Archived from the original on December 1, 2017. Retrieved November 20, 2017.
  22. Dickey, Megan Rose (September 14, 2016). "White House's DJ Patil wants to disrupt the criminal justice system with data". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on November 15, 2017. Retrieved November 19, 2017.
  23. Ross, Denice; Wardell, Clarence (June 2016). "The Police Data Initiative Year of Progress". Medium. Archived from the original on November 21, 2017. Retrieved November 17, 2017.
  24. "Dr. DJ Patil at DataGiri: data science and opportunity ahead". DataGiri Meetup. July 22, 2017. Archived from the original on August 21, 2023. Retrieved November 19, 2017 – via YouTube.
  25. "DJ Patil Talks Nerdy To Us". FiveThirtyEight. March 18, 2015. Archived from the original on December 1, 2017. Retrieved November 20, 2017.
  26. "Precision Medicine Initiative: Privacy and Trust Principles" (PDF). whitehouse.gov. Archived (PDF) from the original on May 11, 2018. Retrieved November 20, 2017 – via National Archives.
  27. "We're About to Cripple the Genomic Medical Era". NewCo Shift. May 23, 2017. Retrieved November 20, 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  28. "Trump's cybersecurity advisors resign en masse". Engadget. August 26, 2017. Retrieved September 8, 2017.
  29. "Former athenahealth founders close $62M funding round for Medicare Advantage startup Devoted Health". Fierce Healthcare. October 24, 2017. Retrieved October 23, 2018.
  30. "DJ Patil, ex-US data scientist, joins venture firm". Axios. February 22, 2023. Archived from the original on March 9, 2024. Retrieved March 9, 2024.
  31. "Obama's former chief data scientist, DJ Patil, joins Venrock as an adviser". TechCrunch. November 14, 2017. Archived from the original on November 14, 2017. Retrieved November 14, 2017.