DataKind

Washington DC, USA

DataKind DC launched in August 2014 to bring the data-for-good movement to America's capital. Washington DC is home to many organizations doing social good at local, national, and international levels and DataKind has already worked with several of them. The city also has a thriving community of data scientists organized by Data Community DC, and they are complemented by civic-minded groups like Code for DC and high-profile attention to data from the White House’s Data.gov and DC's Office of the CTO. Despite the vibrant data and social good ecosystem of DC, there is a need to bring these groups together to foster more collaboration. Datakind DC is thrilled to play that role, facilitating data-for-good engagements to build the capacity of organizations and data scientists alike to put data in service of the public good.

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Our Team

Richard Carder

By day, Rich works in philanthropy at Wellspring Philanthropic Fund as their Learning and Evaluation Officer. There, he uses data to inform strategy development and evaluation, creates learning and knowledge management systems, and coordinates an organizational learning agenda. Rich previously worked in IT, as a water resource engineer, as a GIS analyst, and in field data collection on the cleanup of the BP Gulf oil spill. He has a BSE in Civil Engineering and an MSE in Water Resource Engineering and Hydrology, both from the University of Florida, and an MS in Information Systems from Johns Hopkins University. In addition to DataKind, Rich is involved with Data4BlackLives, Code for DC, and also does independent data analysis and visualization consulting for the World Bank and others.

Charlotte Ellison

Charlotte is a research mathematician with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers where she develops algorithms for geospatial reasoning and computer vision. She received her BA from the University of Virginia, where she majored in mathematics and computer science (and minored in Art History to keep things interesting). When she's not doing data science or machine learning, Charlotte enjoys hiking when the weather is nice and doing jigsaw puzzles or visiting museums when it's not.

Dan Kheloussi

Dan is an energy industry analyst in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Office of Energy Policy and Innovation, where he focuses on emerging issues and technologies in electricity markets. He previously supported the Department of Energy's Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability with the development and demonstration of smart grid technologies, and has also performed research in various fields, including particle physics and LED lighting. Dan has a Bachelors of Science degree in Engineering Physics from the University of Pittsburgh and a Masters of Science degree in Applied Economics from Johns Hopkins University. When he's not writing queries and making graphs, Dan enjoys playing basketball, taking advantage of the cultural events around Washington, DC, and volunteering with local farmers markets.

William Ratcliff

William is a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. His current interests include magnetic materials and the physics of strongly correlated electrons. His interest in data includes inverse problems, machine learning and data visualization. Outside of work, he enjoys running, baking, traveling and data science!

Recent news

March 14, 2023

DataKind DC + Starting With Today: Building Data Maturity for Community Empowerment

By DataKind DC Systemically underserved communities in the U.S. are disproportionately impacted by external stressors such as global pandemics, racism, and public policy decisions. Washington, DC contains many of these communities. DataKind DC partnered with local nonprofit Starting With Today (SWT) to help them better serve communities in and around ...

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March 06, 2023

Volunteer Spotlight: Charlotte Ellison

How did you first become involved with DataKind? What was appealing to you about it? I went to a DataJam in the fall of 2020. During the pandemic, I was looking for ways to get more involved with my community and that offered a way for me to just move ...

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August 31, 2022

Let’s Help Children Facing the Global Food Crisis

by Rich Carder, DataKind DC Chapter Co-Leader and Data Strategy & Analytics Officer at the Wellspring Philanthropic Fund Global food insecurity is sharply on the rise. According to the World Food Programme, in 2022, 345 million people are facing or at risk of facing acute food insecurity, up over 200 ...

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April 30, 2021

Volunteer Spotlight: Dr. Kelson Shilling-Scrivo

Meet Kelson Shilling-Scrivo! He’s a volunteer with DataKind DC and recently worked with the Red Cross to create a national fire risk score . As the Data Ambassador, he worked alongside the rest of the volunteer team to predict the locations in greatest need of intervention so that the Red ...

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