Dr. Jessica Kirkpatrick is a data scientist at Slack where she helps the product team make Slack better for its users by using the power of data. She has previously worked as a data scientist at Hired, Chegg, Microsoft, and Yammer. Before making her transition to the private sector in 2012, Jessica earned a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from UC Berkeley, where she studied some of the most distant and brightest known objects in the universe, quasars, and worked with large and complex data sets. Today, instead of spending her days finding patterns in the structure of the universe, she spends them finding patterns in the behaviors of people in order to make technology work better for us all. In addition to her work in private industry, Jessica maintains an active role in giving back to the astrophysics community. She is on the Board of Trustees for the American Astronomical Society and served on their Committee for the Status of Women in Astronomy for four years.
