Catherine ("Cathy") Helen O'Neil is an American mathematician, data scientist, and author. She is the author of the ''New York Times'' best-seller ''

Weapons of Math Destruction ''Weapons of Math Destruction'' is a 2016 American book about the societal impact of algorithms, written by Cathy O'Neil. It explores how some big data algorithms are increasingly used in ways that reinforce preexisting inequality. It was longli ...

'', and opinion columns in

Bloomberg View Bloomberg News (originally Bloomberg Business News) is an international news agency headquartered in New York City and a division of Bloomberg L.P. Content produced by Bloomberg News is disseminated through Bloomberg Terminals, Bloomberg Televi ...

. O'Neil was active in the Occupy movement.

Education and career

O'Neil attended

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

as an undergraduate, received a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1999, and afterward held positions in the mathematics departments of

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the mo ...

and

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

,. She left academia in 2007, and worked for four years in the finance industry. After becoming disenchanted with the world of finance, O'Neil became involved with the

Occupy Wall Street Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was a protest Social movement, movement against economic inequality and the Campaign finance, influence of money in politics that began in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Financial District, Manhattan, Wall S ...

movement, participating in its Alternative Banking Group. O'Neil operates the blog mathbabe.org and is a contributor to Bloomberg View. Her first book, ''Doing Data Science'', was written with Rachel Schutt and published in 2013. In 2016, her second book, ''Weapons of Math Destruction'' was published, long-listed for the

National Book Award for Nonfiction The National Book Award for Nonfiction is one of five U.S. annual National Book Awards, which are given by the National Book Foundation to recognize outstanding literary work by U.S. citizens. They are awards "by writers to writers". The panelists ...

and became a ''New York Times'' best-seller. A third book, ''The Shame Machine: Who Profits in the New Age of Humiliation'', was published March 2022. She is the founder of O'Neil Risk Consulting & Algorithmic Auditing (ORCAA), an algorithmic auditing company.

Awards

In 1993 O'Neil was awarded the

Alice T. Schafer Prize The Alice T. Schafer Mathematics Prize is given annually to an undergraduate woman for excellence in mathematics by the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM). The prize, which carries a monetary award, is named for former AWM president and fou ...

from the

Association for Women in Mathematics The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) is a professional society whose mission is to encourage women and girls to study and to have active careers in the mathematical sciences, and to promote equal opportunity for and the equal treatment o ...

and in 2019 she won the MAA's

Euler Book Prize The Euler Book Prize is an award named after Swiss mathematician and physicist Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) and given annually at the Joint Mathematics Meetings by the Mathematical Association of America to an outstanding book in mathematics that is ...

for her book ''Weapons of Math Destruction''.

Personal life

O'Neil lives in New York City and has three sons.

Bibliography

* With Rachel Schutt, ''Doing Data Science: Straight Talk from the Frontline'' (O'Reilly 2013, ). * ''On Being a Data Skeptic'' (O'Reilly Media 2013, ). * ''

'' (Crown 2016, ). * ''The Shame Machine: Who Profits in the New Age of Humiliation'' (Crown 2022, ).

References

External links

*
ORCAA - O'Neil Risk Consulting & Algorithmic Auditing
* {{DEFAULTSORT:ONeil, Cathy Harvard University alumni American bloggers University of California, Berkeley alumni Columbia University faculty Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism faculty American women mathematicians 21st-century American women scientists Living people Science bloggers 21st-century American non-fiction writers American women bloggers Year of birth missing (living people) Data scientists 21st-century American mathematicians Women data scientists