Chris Albon

Chris Albon is the Director of Machine Learning at the Wikimedia Foundation. In his role, Chris leads the development and implementation of artificial intelligence on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.

Chris’ previous work includes numerous social good projects completed during over a decade of work at  mission-driven technology companies and nonprofits. As the Director of Data Science at BRCK, he helped build out a network of free Wi-Fi hotspots in Kenya and Tanzania. At the software company Ushahidi, Chris led data science initiatives to support open source software for humanitarian and development efforts worldwide. Additionally, he co-founded Popily, a data visualization company, and served as Project Director at FrontlineSMS, an open source last-mile communication system for social impact.

Chris has been a frequent speaker and panel guest on the topic of machine learning, including keynoting at TWIML and presentations at NormConf, DataCamp, apply(conf), and others. Chris also co-founded and co-hosted “Partially Derivative,” a podcast on data science and machine learning. He is the author of Machine Learning Flashcards and Machine Learning With Python Cookbook, which have since become widely recommended resources within the machine learning community.  

Chris holds a Ph.D. in quantitative political science from the University of California, Davis. His dissertation focused on statistical modeling of rebel and government behavior towards health systems during and after civil wars.

Chris lives in San Francisco.