Taka Ariga

Chief Data Scientist at US Government Accountability Office

Taka is the first Chief Data Scientist appointed by the Comptroller General of the United States for the Government Accountability Office. He also leads GAO’s newly established Innovation Lab in driving problem-centric experiments across audit and operational teams through novel use of advanced analytics and emerging technologies. As a member of the Senior Executive Service, Taka is also responsible for working with GAO stakeholders to adopt prospective views on oversight impacts of emerging capabilities such as AI, cloud services, blockchains, RPA, 5G, and IoT.

Taka is a seasoned analytics executive with over 20 years of experience helping private and public sector organizations make sense of hidden correlations, behaviors, relationships, patterns, and anomalies. He is passionate about fostering a data-informed culture, using data science as a transformational catalyst to address complex regulatory, risk, operational, and business intelligence challenges.

Taka is natively fluent in both Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. In his spare time, he is also a serious classical chamber musician and a competitive tennis player.