Bio
Usama Fayyad is the inaugural executive director of the Institute for Experiential AI at Northeastern University and professor of the practice at Khoury College of Computer Sciences. He is Chairman of Open Insights, a technology and consulting firm he founded in 2008 after leaving Yahoo! to help enterprises deploy Data-driven solutions to grow revenue from AI and Data assets. Usama became the first person to hold the Chief Data Officer title after Yahoo! acquired his second startup, as RVP he also founded Yahoo Research Labs.

Fayyad’s previous roles include Global Chief Data Officer at Barclays Bank and Founding Executive Chairman at Oasis500. He served as co-founder & CTO of OODA Health, held leadership roles at Microsoft and founded the Machine Learning Systems group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where his work on machine learning resulted in the top Excellence in Research award from Caltech and a U.S. Government medal from NASA.

Fayyad earned his Ph.D. in engineering in AI/Machine Learning from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and holds two Bachelor of Science in Engineering degrees in Engineering, MSE Computer Engineering and M.Sc. in Mathematics. Fayyad has published over 100 technical articles on data mining, data science, AI/ML, and databases. He holds over 20 patents and is a Fellow of both the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). He has edited two influential books on data mining/data science and served as Founding Editor-in-Chief on two key journals.