David Yokum

David Yokum, JD, PhD recently moved to Brown University to establish and direct a new (yet-to-be-named) center that will support applied public policy research with state and local governments across the United States, including a special focus on Rhode Island. David is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Watson Institute, Senior Advisor to The Lab @ DC, and Partner at Hugo Analytics. David was previously the founding director of The Lab @ DC in the D.C. Mayor’s Office and, before that, a founding member of the White House’s Social & Behavioral Sciences Team and director of its scientific delivery unit housed at the U.S. General Services Administration Office of Evaluation Sciences. President Obama institutionalized the latter work in Executive Order 13707, “Using Behavioral Science Insights to Better Serve the American People.” All three ventures were exemplars of building internal-to-government scientific capacity and partnerships with universities, which have since inspired replications across the world. David’s work—from the world’s largest field experiment of a police body-worn camera program, to building algorithms that predict the location of rats, to a Form-a-Palooza initiative systematically re-designing all government forms—has been published in diverse outlets (e.g. Nature Human Behavior, Health Affairs, Governing Magazine) and received widespread media coverage (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, etc.). David's public speaking, teaching, and advocacy won the Excellence in Teaching Award from the University of Arizona College of Science. He earned a J.D./Ph.D. from the University of Arizona, a Master’s degree in Bioethics & Medical Humanities from the University of South Florida, and a B.S. in in Biology from Birmingham-Southern College. He lives in Providence, RI with his wife and two young boys.

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