Jake Smith

Background

About Jake Smith

My varied career has one through-line: Using data to help people uncover complex stories so they can solve big problems.I currently serve as a data scientist for the Office of the Inspector General for the Small Business Administration, where I work in Python, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, PowerBI, and Azure Machine Learning Studio to identify operational improvements and help case agents sniff out fraud. Before that, I spent four years as a Statistician with the Office of Policy & Legislation in the U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division, where I used data tools (R, Stata, APIs, PowerBI) to shed light on violent crime trends and determine the drivers of federal drug sentencing policy. I also developed and implemented novel strategies for transforming huge amounts of financial and subpoena return data to dramatically accelerate investigations. And I completed two stints at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, where I spearheaded data-driven research into the prevalence of harm reduction services and overdose mortality among the recently incarcerated.Before transitioning to data work, I worked as a writer, journalist, and editor, specializing in translating complex insights to diverse audiences, As a research editor at Northwestern University, I disseminated new social science and economics research to a broad, non-expert business audience. As a freelance journalist I answered questions about government, policy, justice, economics, social inequality, and the city of Chicago, reporting for local and national outlets. I still do some data journalism projects in my spare time, such as helping to liberate Chicago's menu money data and figuring out whether common narratives about crime hold water.I hold a master's degree in Public Policy from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, where I conducted quantitative education research with Dr. Steve Raudenbush, and a bachelor's degree in Political Science from the University of Chicago.