Abstract:
Data Science in the Federal Government: A path to evidence-based decision making
Data science has started to become an important part of decision making in Canada’s federal government. While the military has a strong tradition with data science (operational research) since at least WWII, only recently have similar techniques started to colour other aspects of government decision making in a sustained and deliberate fashion. In an era of increasing evidence-based decision making, data science will continue to expand across government operations. (We are hiring!)
In this talk, I will outline some of the projects at the Centre for Operational Research and Data Science - Public Services and Procurement Canada with particular attention paid to our efforts with the federal government’s Phoenix payroll system. I will focus on queueing dynamics and survival analysis, but I will also include discussions of other works, including optimal fleet replacement, and the connections between physics and decision sciences.