Kristen Honey

Dr. Kristen Honey is the Chief Data Scientist of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Executive Director of the HHS “InnovationX” team within the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH). Her team tackles complex challenges by harnessing the power of open data, open science, open source, citizen science, crowdsourcing, prizes challenges, and innovative public-private partnerships for public health. Current priorities include improving citizen’s experiences with government services using the novel HHS Health+ (“health plus”) program and other human-centered design methodologies.

Kristen has served the federal government in multiple capacities for eight years. After her AAAS Science & Technology Fellowship at the U.S. Department of Energy, Dr. Honey worked at the White House for three years across two Administrations. Under the Obama Administration (2015 – 2017), she advised the U.S. Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and led Open Data and My Data (data interoperability) from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (2015-2017). Under the Trump Administration (2017 – 2018), she served in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), directing the Open Data portfolio for the Office of the Federal Chief Information Officer until the passage of the foundations for Evidence Based Policy Making Act. Dr. Honey then moved to HHS to advise the HHS CTO and advance the CTO’s digital innovation, human-centered, and partnerships portfolios. During the COVID-19 pandemic response, Dr. Honey served on the COVID-19 Testing and Diagnostics Working Group, managed a 50-person “COVID-19 Diagnostics Informatics” team, and helped HHS establish its new Office of the Chief Data Officer.

Dr. Honey earned her Ph.D. at Stanford University in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in the Environment and Resources, School of Earth Sciences and her Ph.D. minor in Civil and Environmental Engineering. She also holds an M.A. in Environmental Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a B.A. in Human Biology with Honors from Stanford University.