Who Is Sean J. Taylor and What Is His Professional Background?

Updated

Sean J. Taylor is a data scientist, social scientist, statistician, and software developer who, since 2022, has been co-founder and chief scientist at Motif Analytics, his startup. His work centers on methods for causal inference and business decision problems, with a particular interest in building tools for practitioners working on real-world problems. He describes himself as a generalist who collaborates across computer science, economics, political science, statistics, machine learning, and business scholarship.

Current Role: Motif Analytics (2022–Present)

Taylor is co-founder and chief scientist at Motif Analytics. The site links to a separate page with more detail on the company; the homepage itself does not describe Motif's product, pricing, or availability.

Prior Industry Roles

Period Organization Role
2019–2022 Lyft Data scientist and manager on the Rideshare Labs team
2012–2019 Facebook Research scientist and manager on the Core Data Science Team
2006–2008 Matrix Group, International Software engineer
2004–2006 Federal Reserve Board Research assistant

Education

  • Ph.D., NYU Stern School of Business (2008–2013) — concentration in Information Systems. His dissertation was titled Social Influence from Online Social Signals, advised by Sinan Aral.
  • Undergraduate, The University of Pennsylvania (2000–2004) — studied Economics, Finance, and Information Systems.

He grew up in Philadelphia and is a Philadelphia Eagles fan.

Where to Find His Work

The site collects links to his Twitter, newsletter, GitHub, LinkedIn, Google Scholar, and an infrequently updated blog. It also lists talks and podcast appearances organized under three headings:

  • Videos and Podcasts — including a NormConf talk titled "When not to use SQL," an Analytics Engineering Podcast episode on minimum viable experimentation, and appearances on the Super Data Science, TWIML, Gradient Dissent, Learning Bayesian Statistics, and Data Exchange podcasts.
  • Data Science
  • Social Science
  • Experimentation and Statistics — including a 2020 Causal Data Science Meeting keynote, "In Defense of Curve Fitting."

Is This the Right Page for You?

seanjtaylor.com is a personal homepage, not a product or service site. It is useful if you want to understand Taylor's background, find his public talks and interviews on experimentation and causal inference, or follow links to his writing and code. If you are looking for details about Motif Analytics as a company, follow the dedicated link on the homepage rather than expecting them here.