Full Name
Dr. Naomi Adaniya
Job Title
Chief Data Officer
Company
DEA
Speaker Bio
Dr. Adaniya serves as the Chief Data Officer (CDO) at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). As CDO, she has prioritized harnessing the power of data and technology that is driven by and for DEA employee and mission needs. With that human-centered design orientation, Dr. Adaniya leads a team focused on expanding the data expertise of the entire agency in order to empower personnel at all levels to confidently make data-driven decisions. Dr. Adaniya works closely with DEA executives to identify opportunities to realize mission value through the use of data. In this role, Dr. Adaniya also serves as a Senior Advisor to the DEA Administrator where she coordinates DEA’s data capabilities to deliver on the agency’s strategic goals.

In her role, Dr. Adaniya supports a wide spectrum of initiatives that deliver mission impact. She directed development of geo-enabled data tools and visualizations optimizing UI/UX principles for Operation Overdrive, DEA’s overdose and violent crime reduction initiative. Leveraging her passion and expertise in public health, she is testing innovative methodologies to drive drug prevention at the local level. Dr. Adaniya also runs iDEAte, DEA’s Shark Tank-style innovation competition that enables DEA employees to identify problems and then create and pilot data-driven solutions.

As DEA’s CDO, Dr. Adaniya is a member of the Department of Justice’s Data Governance Board and Chair of the Data Architecture Working Group (DAWG), where she helps drive implementation of DOJ’s Data, Artificial Intelligence, and Geospatial Data strategies. She is also the DEA representative on the DOJ Emerging Technology Board, as well as the IC CDO Council, White House Criminal Justice Working Group and Subcommittee on Equitable Data’s (SED) Interagency Working Group on Expanding, Upskilling, and Diversifying the Federal Data Workforce.

Previously, Dr. Adaniya collaborated with the Office of the Deputy Attorney General (ODAG) as Director the Opioid Fraud and Abuse Detection Unit - a pilot program to utilize data to identify and prosecute individuals contributing to the opioid epidemic ravaging families and communities across America. In the Criminal Division, as a Senior Data Scientist, she established two data analytical units - in the Office of Policy & Legislation and the Fraud Section. Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and earned her the 2017 Attorney General’s Award for Fraud Detection and the 2020 Department of Health and Human Services’ Inspector General Award for Innovation. She is a subject matter expert in data science, criminal justice and health policy, substance abuse, and sentencing.

Dr. Adaniya is a graduate of The Ohio State University (OSU) with PhD/MPH in Public Health specializing in health services management and policy and a MA in Geography focused on GIS and Spatial Analytics. She remains active at OSU as both an Adjunct Assistant Professor and as the President of the College of Public Health Alumni Society. She also earned a BS in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Naomi Adaniya