
Dawn Woodard
Biography
Dawn Woodard leads data science for Uber Maps, which is the mapping platform used in Uber’s rider and driver app and decision systems (such as pricing and dispatch). The team’s technologies include road map and points of interest definition, map search, route optimization, travel time prediction, and navigation. Dr. Woodard earned her PhD in statistics from Duke University, after which she was a faculty member in the School of Operations Research and Information Engineering at Cornell. There she developed forecasting methods for emergency vehicle decision support systems, in collaboration with several ambulance organizations. After receiving tenure at Cornell, she joined Microsoft Research for her sabbatical, where she created travel time prediction methods for use in Bing Maps. She then transitioned to Uber, to build and lead data science for the pricing and matching teams, eventually transitioning to her current role in Maps.