Biography
Quantitative social scientist, statistician, data scientist for social good.
Nathen is a quantitative social scientist and data scientist passionate about leveraging statistics to advance society’s well-being (“data science for social good”). For most of his career, Nathen has consulted for federal clients including the F-35 Joint Program Office and the US Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory; he has also worked as a lead data analyst at POLITICO, a political news organization. In his career, Nathen has worn many hats- statistician, programmer, visualization developer, and project manager.
Hailing from sunny Orange County, CA, Nathen is a graduate of Columbia University’s Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences program. At Columbia, Nathen worked as a research fellow under esteemed social psychologist Dr. Valerie Purdie Greenaway in the Laboratory of Intergroup Relations and the Social Mind (LIRSM), where he studied implicit bias and perceptions of social identity within academic and legal contexts. Nathen’s time at LIRSM fostered his fascination with the intersections of technology, media, and politics, and he is intrigued by how Internet social networks shape individuals’ political ideologies. Nathen enjoys reading about theoretical statistics, machine learning, and international affairs, and he is excited to serve the State Department by shaping digital diplomacy strategy via data-driven messaging.
