Kristen Honey

It’s an exciting time to be running data innovations at the intersection of public health crises, government response, and the best of private industry coming together to solve America’s most pressing public health issues. Dr. Honey’s InnovationX team resides in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH). The InnovationX 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. Dr. Honey has worked in the White House across three administrations, advising the White House National Security Council and the HHS Chief Information Officer (CIO) on big-data sharing, governance, analysis, and predictive analytics with AI/ML. In collaboration with the CIO, she established the Office of the Chief Data Officer (OCDO) and co-founded the Data Governance Board to implement the OPEN Government Data Act, which became law with the Foundations for Evidence Based Policymaking Act. She transformed the interagency Open Data community of practice with Data.gov from the Open Data Policy guidance. In June 2018, Dr. Honey transitioned to HHS and the Immediate Office of the Secretary. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Dr. Honey worked with the HHS Chief Information Officer to establish the HHS Office of the Chief Data Officer (OCDO). As HHS’s Chief Data Scientist and Executive Director of InnovationX, she has led the $25M KidneyX Innovation Accelerator, founded the HHS Lyme Innovation initiative, established LymeX, a $25M public-partnership with the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation, and most recently launched PandemicX. Dr. Honey earned her Ph.D. at Stanford University in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in the Environment and Resources, School of Earth Sciences, while simultaneously earning a Ph.D. minor in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Stanford University. She 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. In her spare time, Kristen enjoys yoga, hiking, jogging, sailing, SCUBA diving, skiing, traveling, and holistic health work for Lyme disease, while also having the special ability to hypnotize lobsters to stand on their heads. She is a proud Mainer!