Biography
Enabling empathetic and rigorous decision-making through data
Brian Karfunkel is a data scientist who has worked in academic, nonprofit, and industry settings to turn raw data into decisions and knowledge. He is passionate about transforming how organizations use data to develop the deep understanding necessary to achieve their mission. Working at Stanford Law School, he used public and private data to study workplace safety and health conditions. At the NYU Furman Center, he used data to explore housing affordability, neighborhood-level dynamics in New York City, and accessibility of the housing stock to those with disabilities. During his time at Pinterest, he worked on user growth and retention, advertising, and developing tools, trainings, and methods to use data from product experiments to drive better, faster, and easier decision-making. He also co-founded DataEDU, Pinterest’s data training bootcamp designed to democratize the tools and abilities to use data to guide decisions. After Pinterest he worked at a product experimentation startup, where he developed a novel, scalable Bayesian technique for analyzing experiment results. Brian received a BA in Economics from the University of Chicago, and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Georgia. He lives in Takoma Park with his wife and daughter.
