Biography

Jesse Spencer-Smith, PhD is Associate Dean for Partnerships and Innovation for the College of Connected Computing, Chief Data Scientist and Interim Director for the Data Science Institute at Vanderbilt University, and is Professor of the Practice of Computer Science. He was also recently appointed by Governor Lee to the State of Tennessee’s AI Advisory Council. As Associate Dean, he is leading the Industrial Affiliates Program for the new College of Connected Computing, and invites you to reach our if you’d like to partner with the CCC on adopting AI. As Chief Data Scientist, he leads a team of data scientists and postdoctoral fellows who collaborate with researchers across the university and medical center and with industry partners, and teaches graduate courses on artificial intelligence. He consults with researchers and business leaders on using, training and developing new AI models, and has developed and led workshops on AI for audiences from senior executives in industry to high schoolers. He has been invited to speak on AI internationally to academic, industry, and government conferences focused on science, healthcare, financial services, executive leadership, and service industries. He has published on AI and its applications in areas including astrophysics, archeology, protein binding, education research, medical research, negotiation, and others. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Science from Indiana University, and a BS in Computer Science from the University of Florida. He was previously at HCA Healthcare for nine years, where as Director of Data Science he built the first data science team for the company and was charged with enabling data science across the enterprise through training, mentoring, skills assessments and consulting with business units on data science and AI preparedness. At the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, he was an Assistant Professor of Psychology in Quantitative Methods and was a Beckman Fellow at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. In high school, he founded an early software technology company that developed solutions for civil engineering using the first generations of personal computers.