My background
I’m on the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin, where I have a joint appointment in the McCombs School of Business and in the Department of Statistics and Data Science in the College of Natural Sciences. I also have a courtesy appointment in the Department of Computer Science. My wife Abigail Aiken is also on the UT faculty, in the LBJ School of Public Affairs.
As a data scientist, I collaborate with scholars in a wide range of fields. My recent projects have been in health care, security, infectious disease, and neuroscience. In the past I’ve also done work in linguistics, political science, finance, astronomy, management, and molecular biology. I also research various topics in statistical theory and methods, mainly in the area of Bayesian inference.
I also teach classes in statistical modeling, big data, and probability for several different groups of students at UT.
Recent work
In 2018, my colleague Nick Polson and I published AIQ: How People and Machines are Smarter Together, with St. Martin’s Press. AIQ answers lots of question people tend to have about artificial intelligence. What is AI? How does it work? Where did it come from, and how is it changing the world? For more information, see my Books and Articles page.
Much of my recent research has been in maternal and child health. My collaborators and I have studied the impact of Zika virus on pregnant women in Latin America, the burden of asthma in Texas school children, and why you shouldn’t have your baby in the 9th hour of your doctor’s 12-hour shift. See my research page, my CV, or my software page for details.
How to contact me
You can reach me by e-mail at james.scott@mccombs.utexas.edu.
My mailing address at work is:
James Scott
UT-Austin
2110 Speedway, B6500
Austin, Texas 78712
How to find me on campus
My office is CBA 6.478 in the business school. This is somewhat hard to find: it’s on the 6th floor of the south wing of CBA, on the east side of the building, i.e. on the side facing Speedway and Gregory Gym. The easiest way to get there is go up the elevators in CBA (not the ones in GSB). When you reach the 6th floor, walk straight ahead under the sign for “Behavioral Lab,” turn left, and continue following the hall as it bends to the right around until you find my office. (NB: I have nothing to do with the Behavioral Lab, although I’ve had students remark that finding my office feels like a behavioral experiment.)
You can sometimes find me instead in GDC 7.516 in the statistics department. This is on the 7th floor of the north tower of GDC. Take the elevators on the north side, i.e. on the side of the central atrium opposite the little coffee shop.