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. women 40+ now have more babies per capita than teens
Teen pregnancy was a defining U.S. public health worry of the 1990s. Having a baby at 40 was rare. 30 years later those positions have flipped.
- 8 min
U.S. drug overdose deaths are down 35% from the 2022 peak
U.S. drug overdose deaths peaked at 107,941 in 2022, then fell two years in a row to a provisional 70,000 in 2025: a 35% drop from the peak.
- 5 min
U.S. birth rate fell to a record low in 2025
The CDC reported in April 2026 that the U.S. general fertility rate fell to 53.1 in 2025, a record low in data going back to 1909.
- 5 min
Artemis II ended humanity's 54-year confinement to low Earth orbit
After Apollo 17 in 1972, every crewed mission stayed inside low Earth orbit. Artemis II broke that streak in April 2026 on a lunar flyby of 406,771 km.
- 8 min
Sabastian Sawe ran the first sub-2-hour marathon: 118 years of marathon records
On April 26, 2026, Kenya's Sabastian Sawe ran 1:59:30 at London to become the first man to break two hours in a record-eligible marathon.
- 5 min
Every Atlantic hurricane track, 1980 to 2025
Every Atlantic tropical cyclone from 1980 to 2025 on one map. The shape of the basin and the deadliest storms of 46 seasons emerge from the density.
- 6 min
U.S. oil: from peak importer to net exporter in one decade
The U.S. imported a record 13.7 MMb/d of oil in 2005. By 2025 it exports 2.8 MMb/d more than it imports. Here is what actually changed.
- 4 min
A thousand springs in Kyoto, in one chart
Kyoto's 1,200-year cherry blossom record shows modern decades hold the earliest cluster of blooms ever seen. A warming signal written in flowers.
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.