Brian Head

About Brian Head

I’m a Senior Principal Data Scientist focused on strengthening healthcare program integrity through advanced analytics, machine learning, and scalable data engineering. My work centers on building production‑ready systems that help health programs detect fraud, waste, and abuse; forecast operational trends; and make data‑driven decisions with confidence.Across my career, I’ve led the development of first‑of‑their‑kind analytics capabilities on large contracts — including forecasting systems, unsupervised anomaly detection pipelines, and high‑impact dashboards used for oversight and investigative workflows. I work extensively with SQL, Python, R, PySpark, Databricks, Snowflake, Teradata, AWS, and Tableau, and I’m comfortable operating across databases containing tens of millions of healthcare claims and operational records.I enjoy the intersection of technical depth and practical impact: designing models that are methodologically sound, operationally feasible, and explainable to both technical and non‑technical audiences. I collaborate closely with engineers, SMEs, and leadership to operationalize analytics products, improve data pipelines, and guide teams through modeling best practices. At my core, I’m driven by the belief that high‑quality analytics can meaningfully improve health programs — increasing accountability, strengthening program integrity, and ensuring resources reach the people who need them most.

Experience

1. Senior Principal Data Scientist

   General Dynamics Information Technology

   Dec 2024 — Present

   Led development of the contract’s first Medicare forecasting system using Nixtla‑verse, automated TSCV, and champion model selection across thousands of series (median ~2.5% SMAPE). • Designed and implemented the contract’s first unsupervised anomaly detection pipeline supporting Medicare program integrity and FWA analytics, processing tens of millions of Medicare records using SQL, Python, iForest, and surrogate explainers. • Provided thought leadership to Nixtla, contributing to the mstl_decomposition function and improving model accuracy (SMAPE reduction from ~5% to ~2.5%). • Directed cross‑functional collaboration with data engineering, SMEs, and leadership to operationalize analytics products and integrate outputs into CMS workflows. • Built the contract’s first AutoML classification model, ranking in the top 5% on multiple performance metrics and supporting Medicare monitoring and risk identification. • Led development of an enterprise complaints analytics dashboard integrating geospatial, temporal, and text‑based insights to support CMS oversight and investigative follow‑up. • Mentored analysts and data scientists, establishing modeling best practices and guiding teams through complex data engineering and deployment processes.

Education

• University of Central Oklahoma

  BA, Sociology

  1999 — 2003

• The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  Graduate Certificate, Survey Science

  2007 — 2012

• University of Oklahoma

  MA, Sociology

  2003 — 2005

Skills

• Survey Research
• Survey Design
• Data Collection
• Qualitative Research
• Questionnaire Design
• Quantitative Research
• Focus Groups
• Report Writing
• Proposal Writing
• Sas
• Powerpoint
• Analysis
• Research Design
• Survey Methodology
• Social Research
• Data Analysis
• Cognitive Interviewing
• Survey
• Literature Reviews
• Questionnaires
• Quantitative Analysis
• Statistics
• Spss
• Social Sciences
• Data Management
• Sociology
• Sas Programming
• Statistical Modeling
• Research
• Grant Writing
• Quantitative Analytics