Ben Packer

Ben Packer is a Staff Data Scientist at Recidiviz. Ben has a PhD from Stanford in Computer Science/Machine Learning, but the only thing you really need to know about his education is that between undergrad and grad school he lived in a cookie factory. After grad school, Ben was a data scientist at Opower. Following the acquisition of Opower by Oracle, he went to Google where he worked on a research and product engagement team on fairness, bias, and responsibility in machine learning systems, primarily working with YouTube. In his personal life, you can find Ben biking around Redwood City on his sweet cargo e-bike, playing piano, or involved in a non-profit funding underserved students in local schools. If you have lots of time on your hands, ask him about school funding formulas in California, and if you have even more time, ask him about his most ridiculous bike-related misadventure involving a mysterious man in a Tesla, lots of loose cash, the police, and a “free” $6k bike