Prognostic Data Solutions

Dr. Evan Coopersmith is currently the EVP of Data Science at AE Studio. He reads, blogs, and speaks about data science. He also writes satirical parodies about boardrooms, the modern (major) data scientist, and the risks of technology. Previously, he led the global Advanced Analytics team for the Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG) - an erstwhile academic in the midst of a pandemic. Before his corporate dalliances, he worked as a research scientist with the USDA's Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory via a grant from NASA's SMAP mission. His collaborations in the public sector extend to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and NOAA. He received his B.S. in Operations Research and Financial Engineering from Princeton University, and an M.S./Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in Civil and Environmental Engineering, specializing in mathematical modeling and predictions of environmental systems. Between the masters and doctoral work, along with two college classmates, he founded a quantitative hedge fund at the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX).

After watching the financial calamity of '08 from a front-row seat, though the algorithms developed traded profitably amidst the collapse, his academic interests drew him back to the Midwest. His passion for numerical prediction began with a senior thesis project in which he developed a non-parametric predictor to exploit asymmetric book-making objectives for baseball games - it was highly profitable before the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act (UIGEA).

Along the way, Evan has developed forecasting tools for everything from commodity futures prices to dissolved oxygen levels near the Gulf of Mexico to traffic flows in Boston to soil moisture levels throughout the continental U.S. He has published numerous scholarly articles and won awards for excellence in teaching - the transferal of knowledge being at least equal in importance to its generation. He believes that beneath a profusion of data lies logic and order - that one cannot always divine the future, but one always can maximize their chances of success and make optimal decisions accordingly.