Dr. Randal S. Olson
I’ve worked in AI for 15+ years, starting in research and moving into applied work and company building.
I’m co-founder and CTO of Goodeye Labs, where we build AI products that point frontier models at the business outcomes a team actually cares about.
On the side, I write about data science and AI. Past projects include TPOT (an early AutoML tool) and using AI to compute the optimal U.S. road trip.
Selected work
Projects and tools I’ve built.
A mix of research software, data visualizations, and the current focus at Goodeye Labs.
Truesight
Goodeye Labs' first product. Helps teams keep their AI work pointed at the business outcomes that actually matter.
Goodeye Labs
Teaching an AI Agent to Make Beautiful Charts
A running series where an AI agent makes data visualizations, the Tufte Test scores them, and the scoring criteria stay in public view.
blog series
TPOT: Automated Machine Learning
A Python AutoML tool that optimizes ML pipelines using genetic programming. Built on scikit-learn and cited thousands of times.
open source
Optimal U.S. Road Trip
Used a genetic algorithm to solve the traveling salesman problem across all 50 U.S. states. 13,699 miles of optimal driving, and replicated for dozens of countries since.
data viz
Women in STEM: The Data Story
Visualized gender distribution across U.S. college majors from 1970 to 2012, surfacing the engineering gap.
data viz
Name Age Calculator
Predicts age from a first name using Social Security baby-name data and actuarial tables. Based on FiveThirtyEight’s methodology.
interactive tool
Writing
Recent writing.
Data science, AI, data visualization, and the occasional history deep dive. I write for people who want the analysis and the takeaway, not a lecture.
Latest
U.S. abortions rose after Dobbs, driven by mailed pills
Dobbs was supposed to cut U.S. abortions. It did not. The national total rose after 2022, and the whole increase is telehealth: abortion pills by mail.
- 5 min
ICE detention hit a record, and most detainees have no conviction
U.S. immigration detention hit a record 70,000+ people in early 2026, and TRAC data shows about 7 in 10 detainees have no criminal conviction.
- 5 min
Curaçao is the smallest nation ever at a World Cup
The 48 nations at the 2026 World Cup span a 2,181x gap in population, from the United States (340M) to Curaçao (156,000), the smallest ever to qualify.
- 5 min
The rise in LGBTQ+ identification is mostly young women
Nearly 1 in 3 Gen Z women in the U.S. identifies as LGBTQ+, versus 12% of Gen Z men. Gallup data shows the generational surge is mostly about women.
- 6 min
Honey bees are dying at record rates, but the colony count holds steady
U.S. beekeepers lost a record 55.6% of their colonies in 2024-25, yet the total number of managed honey bee colonies has barely moved in 15 years.
- 7 min
CO2 is piling up faster every decade, and 2026 just set a record
Atmospheric CO2 hit a record 432 ppm in May 2026, but the deeper story is the pace: CO2 is now piling up about 3 times faster than it did in the 1960s.
- 7 min
New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker
A recent U.S. college degree long meant lower unemployment than the average worker. That edge flipped in 2019, and the gap is now the widest on record.
- 5 min
Gas prices feel like a record in 2026. Adjusted for inflation, they are not
U.S. gas prices jumped nearly 60% since January in the 2026 oil crisis, but adjusted for inflation they sit below the 1981, 2008, and 2022 peaks.
Background
About me.
The short version: 15+ years in AI, starting in research and moving into applied work and company building.
I did my Ph.D. at Michigan State in computer science, focused on evolutionary algorithms and the evolution of intelligence, and then a postdoc at Penn. After that I spent years on applied ML and AI strategy, most recently as Head of AI Strategy at AE Studio.
Outside of work, I write about data science and AI here. A few of those projects found an audience beyond the blog: TPOT (AutoML), the optimal U.S. road trip, and a widely-shared visualization of gender distribution across U.S. college majors. Over the years, various bits of my writing have been covered by the New York Times, Washington Post, Wired, and FiveThirtyEight.
These days, most of my time goes to Goodeye Labs. Frontier AI can do almost anything, but most teams can't get it pointed at the outcome they actually care about. We’re building products to fix that.
- Based in
- Anacortes, WA
- Role
- Co-founder & CTO, Goodeye Labs
- Ph.D.
- Michigan State University, 2015
- Publications
- 50+ peer-reviewed, ~6,600 citations
Contact
Get in touch.
If you want to work together, talk shop about AI, or nerd out about something specific, drop me a line. Email is best.