David D. Jensen

David D. Jensen is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, affiliated with the College of Information and Computer Sciences. He directs the Knowledge Discovery Laboratory (founded in 2000) and serves as Associate Director of the UMass Computational Social Science Institute. His research focuses on machine learning, causal inference, and data science for analyzing complex systems in social science, security, and public policy.

Education: D.Sc. in Engineering and Policy from Washington University (1992), M.S. in Engineering and Policy (1988), and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from University of Nebraska (1986). Prior to academia, he worked at the U.S. Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (1991–1995).

Research interests include causal model construction, explainable AI, and evaluation of machine learning systems. He has served on program committees for top conferences such as KDD, ICML, and UAI, and held roles on DARPA’s Information Science and Technology Group and the ACM SIGKDD Board (2005–2013).

• Awards: 2011 Outstanding Teacher Award

Professional activities include roles on the Defense Science Study Group (2006–2007) and ongoing contributions to data science for social good initiatives.