William H. Crown, Ph.D., is Distinguished Research Scientist at The Heller School, Brandeis University.  In this role he provides methodological guidance on a portfolio of research projects with specific focus on causal inference in database studies, simulation of health care systems, and application of operations research methods to health policy questions. From 2013-2020, he was Chief Scientific Officer of OptumLabs where he led the development of the research and data infrastructure of the Labs, as well as its relationships with academic research partners. From 2004-2013, Dr. Crown was President of the health economics, late phase research, data products, and epidemiology business units at Optum Life Sciences.  He was Vice President of Outcomes Research and Econometrics at Thomson Reuters Medstat from 1994-2004.  From 1982-1995, Dr. Crown was a faculty member of the Florence Heller Graduate School, Brandeis University, where he taught graduate courses in statistics and conducted research on the economics of aging and long-term care policy.  He received his doctorate degree in regional economic modeling from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a master of arts in economics from Boston University. The author of two books and co-author of two others, Dr. Crown has published over 180 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and other scholarly papers. He is a frequent speaker on statistical methods for the analysis of observational data at professional meetings and conferences.  Dr. Crown was also 2013-14 President of the International Society of Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR).  He currently co-chairs an ISPOR Task Force on Machine Learning, as well as a joint ISPOR/ISPE Task Force on protocol design to enhance transparency in the registration of observational studies. He is particularly interested in the intersection of machine learning and causal inference methods.