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Cathy O'Neil

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Cathy O'Neil
Cathy O'Neil at Google Cambridge in 2016
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUC Berkeley
Harvard University
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsMIT
Barnard College
D.E. Shaw
Columbia University
Thesis Jacobians of Curves of Genus One
Doctoral advisorBarry Charles Mazur
Websitemathbabe.org

Catherine ("Cathy") Helen O'Neil is an American mathematician and the author of the blog mathbabe.org and several books on data science, including Weapons of Math Destruction. She was the former Director of the Lede Program in Data Practices at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Tow Center and was employed as Data Science Consultant[1] at Johnson Research Labs.

She lives in New York City and was active in the Occupy movement.[2]

Education and academic career

O'Neil attended UC Berkeley as an undergraduate,[2] received a Ph.D. in mathematics from Harvard University in 1999,[3] and afterward held positions in the mathematics departments of MIT and Barnard College, doing research in arithmetic algebraic geometry.[4] She left academia in 2007, and worked for four years in the finance industry, including two years at the hedge fund D. E. Shaw.[5] After becoming disenchanted with the world of finance, O'Neil became involved with the Occupy Wall Street movement,[2] participating in its Alternative Banking Group.[6]

Bibliography

She is a co-author (with Rachel Schutt) of Doing Data Science: Straight Talk from the Frontline (O'Reilly 2013, ISBN 1449358659). She also wrote an e-book On Being a Data Skeptic (O'Reilly Media 2013, ISBN 1491947233). Her book Weapons of Math Destruction was published in 2016 (Crown, ISBN 0553418815) and was long-listed for the 2016 National Book Award for Nonfiction.[7][8]

Personal life

O'Neil lives in New York City with her husband Aise Johan de Jong and their three sons.[9]

References