Jeffrey Chen, a data scientist in residence at Georgetown University, has joined the Commerce Department as its first-ever chief data scientist and will help efforts to meet the goals of the Commerce Data Service.Tyrone Grandison, deputy chief data officer and CDS head, wrote in a blog entry posted Tuesday that Chen will work to apply product development and data science in support of Commerce’s data projects.
“The entire [CDS]Â team is excited to have Jeff on board and looks forward to the exciting work he’ll be engaged in at the Commerce Department,” Grandison stated.
Chen has had experience in public service at the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, NASA and New York City’s fire department.
He was a Presidential Innovation Fellow at NASA and director of analytics at FDNY.
Ian Kalin, Commerce’s chief data officer, has said the department is still on the lookout for data scientists like Chen as well as front-end developers and back-end engineers to join CDS.
