Cathy O’Neil

Cathy O'Neil earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Harvard, was a postdoc at the MIT math department, and a professor at Barnard College where she published a number of research papers in arithmetic algebraic geometry. After academia, she worked as a quant for the hedge fund D.E. Shaw during the credit crisis, and subsequently for RiskMetrics, a company that assesses risk for the holdings of hedge funds and banks. She left finance in 2011 to pursue a career in the New York startup scene as a data scientist, building models that predicted people's purchases and clicks.

O'Neil wrote "Doing Data Science" in 2013 and launched the Lede Program in Data Journalism at Columbia University in 2014. She is a New York Times bestselling author with notable works including "Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy," which was a semifinalist for the National Book Award, and "The Shame Machine: Who Profits in the New Age of Humiliation." She is also a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion and a recognized expert in the fields of big data, algorithms, and their impacts on society.

In addition to founding ORCAA, an algorithmic auditing company, O'Neil is involved with the Public Interest Tech Lab at the Harvard Kennedy School. Her expertise in data science and ethical algorithm use is recognized globally, with features in major publications like Bloomberg, Wired, and The Harvard Gazette. She regularly speaks at prestigious venues such as Talks at Google and TED, and has been featured in the documentary "The Social Dilemma."