William Gui Woolston

Contact Information

woolstong [at] aetna.com

About me

I am a Stanford-trained PhD economist who loves building data products, end to end.

I am passionate about listening to customer needs, brainstorming creative solutions, leading technical teams to build, and selling the product vision to customers, recruits, and investors.

I work at CVS-Aetna, where I am VP of Data Science, focusing on their new clinical products. In this role, I split my time between managing technical development and team growth, forming the product vision, and cultivating client relationships. Previously, I spent five years at the health analytics startup Nuna Health. I served as Director of data science, and I helped build a product that matches new Medicaid members to primary care doctors based on personalized information.

Previously, I worked for the Obama White House, did healthcare consulting at BCG, and have taken several detours into finance (JP Morgan, hedge funds).

I have a particular passion for explaining how data science can help my colleagues -- business owners, investors, engineers, or aspiring data scientists -- achieve their goals.

Publications (from my former life as an academic)

• • Does Legal Status Matter for Educational Choices? Evidence from Immigrant Teenagers (with Zachary Liscow). American Law and Economics Review, Forthcoming.

  • Who's In? Who's Out? Policy to Address Job Rationing During Recessions (with Zachary Liscow). Tax Law Review. December 2017. Volume 70, No. 627.

• How Does Risk Selection Respond to Risk Adjustment? New Evidence from the Medicare Advantage Program. (with Jason Brown, Ilyana Kuziemko, and Mark Duggan). American Economic Review. October 2014. Volume 104, No. 10.

  • Does State Fiscal Relief During Recessions Increase Employment? Evidence from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (with Gabriel Chodorow-Reich, Laura Feiveson, and Zachary Liscow). American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. August 2012. Volume 4, No. 3.

    • Winner: best paper prize

  • Class Size and Class Heterogeneity (with Giacomo De Giorgi and Michele Pellizzari). Journal of the European Economics Association. August 2012. Volume 10, Issue 4.

Education

• • PhD. Stanford University, 2006 - 2012.

  • AB. Harvard College, 2002 - 2006.

Teaching

Teaching Assistant for Graduate Macro Economics (Prof Nir Jaimovich)

• • Winner: Outstanding TA Award

  • Teaching Handouts

  • Student Feedback