Leadership
Dawn Li, Ph.D.
President
Dr. Dawn Li has about twenty years of corporate and university experience, with expertise in contract management, integrated knowledge and data systems, e-learning curriculum design, and proposal writing. As President of Data and Analytic Solutions, Inc. (DAS), Dr. Li has won and managed multi-million dollar contracts in fraud detection, business intelligence, and e-learning and web application development. Under her management team’s leadership, DAS has grown into a successful small consulting firm providing innovative data analytic services to the public and private sectors. Its key clients include Securities and Exchange Commission, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, US Treasury, US Bureau of Census, US Coast Guard, Citizenship and Immigration Services, Agency for Health Research and Quality, and US Sentencing Commission. Prior to DAS, Dr. Li worked at Northrop Grumman Information Systems as a contractor to various Department of Health and Human Services agencies (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Food and Drug Administration), consulted on instructional design for multimedia projects funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and taught a few courses, including e-commerce and web programming, in US and Chinese universities. Dr. Li was honored as a 2009 Top 100 Minority Business Enterprise Award Winner and received Maryland’s State Governor’s Citation in 2009. She is a member of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA NOVA Chapter), the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), and Women in Technology (WIT). She holds Ph.D. in English concentrating on Interdisciplinary Studies and an M.S. in Management Information Systems from the George Washington University; her Graduate Diploma and B.A. are from Peking University and Wuhan University respectively.
Jennifer Lawrence
Operations Manager
The indelible lessons imparted upon Ms. Lawrence when she separated from her early foray with the U.S. Marine Corps was an attention to detail and to improvise, adapt, and overcome. The result of her varying range of interests paved by her inquisitiveness and adaptability is a nimble, pro-active problem solver with over 20 years of experience supporting various projects in healthcare, finance and government programs. Her troubleshooting is always in demand by colleagues and customers alike. She believes strongly in the importance of exceptional customer service. She is able to perform autonomously and as a member of a team and functions well under pressure. She is an expert communicator and facilitator with great interpersonal skills, effective interactions with business and technology professionals as well as executive management. Her technical inclination has served her well when technical support and training end-users in the use of computer and clinical information systems. In addition to her corporate level support Jennifer’s works on several contracts for DAS, most notably, she is spearheading the effort to improve non-tax debt collections for the U.S. Department of the Treasury Bureau of Fiscal Services.
Dr. Kenneth M. Nelson
MD, MPH, CFE, Advisor
Dr. Kenneth M. Nelson has over 30 years of professional experience having worked for NIH and CMS as an employee or contractor in medical research, statistical analysis and fraud concerns. Following completion of a neurosurgical residency, Dr. Nelson was a Special Fellow at the National Institute of Neurological; Diseases and Stroke, through 1969. His research was concerned with brain trauma and the biological basis of brain swelling. Several publications resulted from the research during that period including the development of an isolated subarachnoid space for research purposes. From mid 1974 to late 1977, Dr. Nelson was the Associate Director of the newly formed Cancer Control and Rehabilitation Division of the National Cancer Institute. He left that position to become the Medical Officer for the Office of Inspector General, US Department of Health and Human Services (Then called the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.) Dr. Nelson worked for 20 years as the Medical Advisor, Office of Inspector General (OIG) US Department of Health and Human Services. His activities have involved bringing medical expertise to support and to orient statistical analysis, audit, and investigations. As the Medical Officer for the newly formed OIG, he provided medical support for the auditors and criminal investigators reviewing Medicaid records and data. He worked with the OIG Advanced Techniques Staff, a small group of specialized auditors who were pioneers in the development of statistical analyses of Medicaid claims. While with the OIG he created the medical standards for criminal investigators which were utilized by most federal law enforcement agencies. He also provided quality assurance and devised standards for the review of medical records utilized in the exclusion of physicians from the Medicare/Medicaid programs. He provided medical support and guidance for criminal investigators and auditors of Medicaid, Medicare, and the Public Health Service. The earliest efforts of the OIG were in Medicaid. The techniques developed there were expanded and applied to Medicare. For many years, Dr. Nelson was the only MD certified as a fraud examiner. He is a past regent of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. He also has served on their teaching faculty.
John H. Zheng
SAS Automation Subject Matter Expert
A highly qualified senior analytic consultant and SAS developer, Mr. John Zheng has over ten years of experience in supporting health care and commercial clients (banks) with data analysis, SAS programming and automation, statistical studies and modeling. He has solid analytical skills – ability to identify problems, evaluate, analyze, build model, gain insights & draw conclusions, good knowledge of healthcare related statistical methods, program evaluation, and analytics techniques, experience in developing models using healthcare financial, clinical datasets, well-developed understanding of the healthcare delivery system, population, and management approaches, and good organizational skills (ability to conceptualize & prioritize; detailed oriented; passion for accuracy & follow-through). He also has excellent interpersonal skills as a team player, the ability to multitask and to work under pressure to meet deadlines. He has a Master of Science in Statistics from George Mason University and a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Science and Technology of China.
Robert Carlson
PMP, MBA, Project Manager / Analytics Expert
Mr. Carlson has more than 10 years’ quantitative analytical management experience and over five years managing Federal technical analytics projects. He is a subject matter expert in Federal healthcare and financial information technology programs. While serving as Director of Data Science and Advance Analytics, Mr. Carlson directed a data analysis department, managed a portfolio of data analytic contracts, and was responsible for program management and delivery. He served as Lead Data Scientist, Project Manager, and Data Manager for projects within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. His knowledge of Federal program integrity and compliance analysis is a proven asset and always appreciated by those he serves.
Mr. Carlson has a comprehensive array of knowledge across diverse information technology and data analytics fields. A flexible data scientist, he is able to communicate adaptively and is an experienced leader and mentor. Particularly of note is his experience in project management, training, recruiting technical staff, informatics, analytics, and management consulting. He holds a MBA specializing in management science, statistics and data analysis, BBA in Management Information Systems, is a certified SAS Base programmer and PMP.
Thomas Warfield
Senior Systems Architect
Mr. Thomas Warfield has over 25 years’ expert experience in a spectrum of Information Technology fields, including Database Administration, Data Architecture, Project Management, Data Warehousing, Software Development, Web Site Development, and Network Administration. He has served a variety of customers, offering high-quality, flexible, and reliable solutions to data management and analysis problems, including schema design and disaster planning, stored procedure development, database tuning and query optimization, and scripting with numerous programming tools, such as SQL (Oracle PL/SQL, Microsoft T-SQL, and MySQL), COBOL, Java, ASP.NET, HTML, PHP, CSS, XML, VBScript and JavaScript.
Thomas has given presentations in Database Management and Website Development conferences held by the International Oracle User’s Group (IOUG-A). He is a co-author of the book, “Born to Stand Out: Tips to Becoming an Excellent Computer Consultant”. He earned his M.S. in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Simulation from George Washington University.
Ping Yu
Senior Data Scientist
Ms. Ping Yu is a seasoned statistical programming developer with about 16 years’ experience in statistical analysis, web reporting system development, data manipulation (ETL) and data modeling. She has strong hands-on expertise in coding and data processing using SAS Enterprise Miner, SAS Enterprise Guide, SAS Macros/STAT/ODS/Graphs, Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), PL/SQL and SQL Server, extensive experience with large data sets and databases, and advanced quantitative analysis skills in logistic regression, piecewise regression, ANOVA, Bayesian statistics, Loss Forecast Model and Value at Risk Model.
Ms. Yu is a SAS Certified Advanced Programmer. She earned her M.S. in Statistics from George Washington University.
Guan Lin, Ph.D.
Data Scientist
Dr. Guan Lin is an exceptional data scientist with 7 years of experience in statistical analysis and programming, sampling design, hypothesis testing and econometrical modeling. His well-rounded knowledge in economics and data analysis makes him well suited for implementation of technical applications that meet tough business requirements, a quality extremely valuable for those who work in data science.
Dr. Lin holds SAS certified Advanced Programmer certification and has over 4 years’ demonstrable experience in SAS data analyses, data manipulations and data reports. He was a data analyst in USDA FSIS Advanced Analytics project to process external and internal data requests by using database tools and statistical software. He also supported Social & Scientific Systems with high-level statistical analysis on Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (ARHQ) Shiny Server Statistics project, conducting complex survey design such as post-stratification weighting and treatment of single sampling unit. In addition to SAS, Dr. Lin also has solid software skills in SQL, STATA, Python, SPSS, Eviews, MATLAB, advanced Excel, and more.
Dr. Lin also supports DAS with proposal writing and coordination, technical solutions design, business procedure research, documentation, and report assistance. He is a key contributor to DAS’ CMMI level 3 assessment preparation and implementation effort.
Dr. Lin earned his doctorate in Economics at Temple University in 2017. He was a recipient of Jeffrey Coons Summer Research Fellowship and Doctoral Dissertation Award at Temple University. His research areas include human capital, global migration and their effects on economic growth.