Jeff Alstott
Professor Of Policy Analysis at RAND Corporation
United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolJeff Alstott is a professor and senior information scientist with 14 years of experience applying complex-systems thinking to policy, national security, and technology forecasting. He blends rigorous academic training (PhD in Complex Systems from Cambridge) with hands-on program management at IARPA and technology policy roles at the White House and NSF, translating research into operational programs. Jeff builds and analyzes large-scale data and network models—his open-source contributions to the powerlaw library show deep expertise in statistical methods for distributional inference. He has founded and advised interdisciplinary initiatives that sit at the intersection of R&D, strategy, and risk, and has experience spinning novel ideas into startups and competitive funding wins. Colleagues describe him as equally at ease with code, math, and high-stakes policy conversations, a combination that lets him spot leverage points others miss. Based in the United States, he focuses on making complex systems both more intelligible and more resilient.
14 years of coding experience
12 years of employment as a software developer
Australian National UniversityBS, BS, BA, Biology (BS, Honors), Cognitive Science (BS), History (BA), BS, BS, BA, Biology (BS, Honors), Cognitive Science (BS), History (BA) at Indiana University BloomingtonMBA, Entrepreneurship, MBA, Entrepreneurship at Indiana University - Kelley School of BusinessExchange Student, Global Business Management and Economics, Exchange Student, Global Business Management and Economics at FGV - Fundação Getulio VargasPhD, Complex Systems, PhD, Complex Systems at University of Cambridge
English, Spanish, Portuguese
Stackoverflow
2,673reputation
201kreached
1answer
32questions
Github Skills (14)
statistics10
probability-distribution10
python10
distributions10
data-analysis10
scipy8
canopy6
big-data6
algorithm6
igraph6
boto6
csv6
dataframe6
r6
Programming languages (5)
Github contributions (5)
jeffalstott/powerlaw
Aug 2011 - Dec 2022
Role in this project:
Data Scientist
Data ScientistContributions:396 commits, 25 PRs, 64 pushes in 11 years 6 months
Contributions summary:Jeff appears to be building out statistical analysis capabilities within the `powerlaw` repository. The primary focus of their contributions involves implementing functions for analyzing data distributions, including power laws, truncated power laws, lognormals, and stretched exponentials. Key contributions include the development of goodness-of-fit measures and a library of statistical functions for the analysis of various probability distributions. The user made a large number of commits with the goal of implementing a system for identifying distributions and comparing their goodness of fit.
jeffalstott/technologyspace
Nov 2015 - Apr 2018
Contributions:29 commits, 25 pushes, 1 branch in 2 years 5 months
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