Making Better Work

This episode is jaw-dropping. Spanning massive changes in data to the thriller-style story Rhode Island’s successful Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program launch in under 10 days, Dr. Justine shares a wealth of insights, lessons, and possibilities from her experience working with states to reimagine their data systems and applications. Justine* is the founding director at Research Improving People’s Lives or RIPL, a new kind of Data Science and Research Lab based in Rhode Island that works with public and social sector leaders from across the country to use data to improve policy and make people’s lives better.  She’s one of a whole new class of data scientists that link academic, tech, data, and public policy. Longitudinal data systems (like the Workforce Data Quality Initiative) are at the center of these efforts. *Justine is a also polymath. She served on the Academic Research Council for the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and on the Council of Economic Advisors to the Governor of