Jeremy Gordon graduated from the School of Information with a Ph.D. focused on computational cognitive science in 2023. Before attending the I School, he graduated from Stanford University with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and political science. He is currently the co-founder and CTO of the startup Olli Health.
What was your favorite thing about the I School?
I loved being able to participate and immerse myself in science across a wonderfully wide continuum of disciplinary traditions. This word means so many things to so many people, and sampling theories, philosophies, and methodologies across that spectrum was extremely satisfying. It’s hard to imagine anywhere else that would have given me that opportunity and that freedom, along with the authentic, truly caring support of incredible mentors and staff.
What’s an information or data challenge that intrigues you?
Notions of uncertainty are inherent to nearly every public conversation, especially those involving the future, and yet there is huge variation in the way each of us responds to and reasons through uncertainty in general. Can we find tools (e.g. linguistic ones) to help us communicate more clearly about our levels of confidence, especially in conversations about complex systems? I’m reminded of the cautionary tale that emerged from a particularly memorable discussion in Concepts of Information, after a reading on Reddy’s conduit metaphor.
You founded a company, Olli Health, which was part of Techstars NYC’s 2024 Accelerator Program. Tell us more! What compelled you to start a company and how has the experience been?
I loved being a researcher at the I School and beyond, but even in that work, I found ways to design and build things that I hoped would allow me to ask more interesting questions. I have learned that I’m a builder at heart, and after graduation, with some more time on my hands, I had the luxury of looking around at what problem I wanted to work on next, and who I wanted to approach it with. It was an adventure figuring it out, but I landed on a piece of the daunting US healthcare system where I felt I could apply my skills, and improve things. It has been challenging at times, but also satisfying. That’s especially true now, as I’ve been lucky to find and build a team of great collaborators with whom I get to chip away at some very hard problems.
Is there an achievement or project that you are most proud of (post-graduation)?
I’ve consulted from time to time with colleagues who run the Sudanese Human Rights Hub, which has given me the opportunity to work on technical systems in service of HRH’s work documenting and archiving human rights violations prior to, and during the current war. I can hardly call my contribution an achievement, but I’ve been honored to be able to help improve the tools that support their critical mission.
What advice would you give your past self as an I School student? To other Ph.D. students or alumni interested in pursuing entrepreneurship?
If you, like me, enjoy building things, build them. As many amazing colleagues at BioSense and elsewhere showed me, creation, art, imagination, even products, can all be useful tools of science and understanding. It was valuable for me to also nourish a practice of building divorced from commercial application. Designing tools for my research was a lucky gateway, and led me to find many other ways to enjoy the creation of things that would never find their way into a startup.
