Tom Smith

Managing Director, Data Science Campus, Office for National Statistics (ONS)

Tom Smith is Managing Director at the Data Science Campus, joining the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in 2017. He was co-founder and, prior to joining ONS, chief executive of Oxford Consultants for Social Inclusion (OCSI), a research and data ‘spin-out ' company from the University of Oxford.

Tom has more than 20 years ' experience using data and analysis to improve public services. Working at the intersection of government, academia and industry, he has led data & research projects with hundreds of local and national public and community sector organisations, including the government 's English Indices of Deprivation. His primary research interests are in using data science to improve public services, machine learning, and assessing non-traditional data sources to improve our understanding of society and the economy.

A life-long data addict, Tom has a PhD in computational neuroscience, evolving neural networks for robot control (Sussex, 2002), an MSc in knowledge-based systems (Sussex, 1997), and MA in theoretical physics (Cambridge, 1994). He is vice-chair of the Royal Statistical Society Official Statistics section, and previously chair of the Environment Agency Data Advisory Group, and a member of the Open Data User Group ministerial advisory group to Cabinet Office. He has also acted as an external advisor on opening-up, sharing and using data for multiple government departments.

Twitter: @_datasmith
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomdatasmith