Howard Steven Friedman is a data scientist, health economist, and writer with decades of experience in the private sector, public sector and academia.
Friedman’s private sector experience includes being a director at Capital One where he led teams of statisticians, analysts and programmers in various areas of operations and marketing. Later he founded a number of companies focused on data analytics with a focus on health care, finance, telecommunications, and retail. He also has specific experience supporting private equity firms where he has led analytic teams on projects, communicated to senior executive and lay-audiences, and taught data science to technical and non-technical teams.
His public sector work has focused on public health and applications of data science and statistics. This work has included leading many research projects for governments and international organizations.
His academic work includes teaching at data science, statistics, and program evaluation at Columbia University. He has authored/co-authored over 100 scientific articles and book chapters in areas of applied statistics, health economics and politics.
In June 2012, Prometheus Books released his book Measure of a Nation. This book focuses on how to improve America by first comparing its performance with thirteen competitive industrial nations, then identifying the best practices found throughout the world that can be adopted here in the United States. Measure of a Nation was named by Jared Diamond as the best book of 2012 in an interview published in the New York Times.
Friedman’s other published books include three Statistical Software manuals, an e-book on government financing, A Modest Proposal for America (2013), and a poetry book, Angels and Stardust (1995).
His book on how human life is valued, Ultimate Price (2020), was translated in numerous languages. His latest release, Winning With Data Science (2024), shows business managers and leaders how to be a good data science customer by focusing on important questions to ask the data science team.
