Denice W. Ross is the Director of Federal Data Policy at the Federation of American Scientists where she is catalyzing the field of government data policy. This includes collaborating with other federal data watchers to build digital civic infrastructure like 1) dataindex.us, the go-to resource that helps data stakeholders keep up on the health of their favorite datasets and give federal agencies feedback when policy windows open, and 2) essentialdata.us, a robust collection of 100+ use cases describe how specific federal datasets benefit American lives and livelihoods. Denice is a seasoned organizer of diverse data colleagues across civil society, academia, tech companies, and all levels of government. Most recently, she served as the Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer and as the U.S. Chief Data Scientist, where she led the charge to use disaggregated data to drive better outcomes for all Americans. Denice’s 25-year career using data to serve the public interest has spanned federal and local government, academia, and the nonprofit sector plus domains ranging from climate to policing.
Datasets and variables that do not align with Administration priorities, or might reflect poorly on Administration policy impacts, seem to be especially in the cross-hairs.
As the former U.S. Chief Data Scientist, I know first-hand how valuable and vulnerable our nation’s federal data assets are. Like many things in life, we’ve been taking our data for granted and will miss it terribly when it’s gone.