Tom Smith
Managing Director
Tom is managing director at the Data Science Campus, joining the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in 2017. He was previously co-founder and chief executive of Oxford Consultants for Social Inclusion (OCSI), a research and data ‘spin-out’ company from the University of Oxford.
Tom has more than 20 years’ experience using data and analysis to improve public services. Working at the intersection of government, academia and industry, he has led data & research projects with hundreds of local and national public and community sector organisations, including the government’s English Indices of Deprivation. His primary research interests are in using data, analysis and data science to improve public services, machine learning, and assessing non-traditional data sources to improve our understanding of society and the economy.
A life-long data addict, Tom has a PhD in computational neuroscience and robotics, evolving neural networks for robot control (Sussex, 2002), an MSc in knowledge-based systems (Sussex, 1997), and MA in theoretical physics (Cambridge, 1994).
He is currently Chair of the Advisory Board to the United Nations Global Platform for big data & official statistics, Member of Council for the UK Royal Statistical Society, and previously chair of the Environment Agency Data Advisory Group, vice-chair of the Royal Statistical Society Official Statistics section, and a member of the Open Data User Group ministerial advisory group to Cabinet Office. He has acted as an external adviser on opening-up, sharing and using data for multiple government departments.