About

Ryan Kappedal is a highly accomplished data scientist, cross-cultural communicator, and military leader with over 20 years of experience in the United States Air Force. He has worked in diverse fields such as biology, genetics, seismology, electrical engineering, and physics, consulting on statistics and machine learning for prediction and analysis. Ryan has also experienced the challenges of field data collection firsthand while serving as a test director at the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center. He has worked in situations where he had to communicate technical perspectives to a non-technical audience, and he understands the importance of communicating effectively to implement policy changes. Ryan has refined and developed his leadership skills throughout his military career, leading large field exercises involving hundreds of people and small analytical teams to analyze intelligence in combat deployments. He is currently working as a Principal Data Scientist at Gusto, where he builds production machine learning models to manage capital liquidity risk and predict customer behavior. He conducts A/B tests for machine learning impacts on business outcomes, runs capacity planning forecasts, and trains and mentors junior analysts and scientists. Before joining Gusto, Ryan served as the Lead Product Manager for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence at the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), where he fielded AI/ML prototypes for healthcare and intelligence systems to transform and modernize the Defense Department. He also worked as a Visiting Scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he built machine learning models for seismic event identification for nuclear detonations. Ryan holds a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Statistics from the University of Washington, a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Operations Research from the United States Air Force Academy. He is skilled in research, data science, machine learning, test, product management, and AI. Ryan has 13.54 years of relevant experience and is a valuable asset to any organization that values effective communication, data-driven decision making, and strong leadership.