Ya Xu leads the LinkedIn data science practice, consisting of hundreds of researchers distributed across the USA (Sunnyvale, Mountain View, San Francisco, New York), India and Dublin. The team touches every aspect of the organization, helping to inform decisions about new product features, business investments, surfacing economic insights for policy makers, and much more. Prior to LinkedIn, Ya was an Applied Researcher at Microsoft in Washington.
Ya is also committed to helping lead LinkedIn's efforts to practice responsible data science, tackling tough challenges like "How do we maintain members' privacy when working with their data?" and "How can we ensure that product updates benefit all members equally?" Her team works with cutting-edge techniques in areas like differential privacy, equality A/B testing, and others in order to uphold LinkedIn's ethical values in their work to use LinkedIn's vast data to create economic opportunity.
She has a BS in Economics and Mathematics from Williams College, and PhD in Statistics from Stanford University.
