Dr. Burns is a data scientist who specializes in the use of machine learning and statistical data analysis to solve emerging data-driven challenges in industries ranging from the Internet of Things to national security. Using novel computational techniques, including computer vision and natural language processing, Dustin extracts meaning from sensor and internet data in order to make informed business decisions and to improve products with a focus on optimization, automation, and security. He combines his extensive computational toolkit with broad laboratory skills to perform prototyping, product testing, and failure replication.

​

Dustin received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California, Davis, in the field of experimental high-energy physics. Dustin’s dissertation research was based at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), where he worked on the same team that contributed to the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012. Dustin is experienced in large scale data processing and analysis using distributed computing systems, statistics, and machine learning. He has a fluency and adaptability to different computing environments and coding languages. Dustin gained laboratory and hardware experience performing radiation hardness and detector prototype testing in high-energy beamlines.

Additionally, Dustin is a founding member of the CRAYFIS: Cosmic RAYs Found In Smartphones (http://crayfis.io) experiment, where he applied modelling and statistical techniques to help design a ground-based comic ray detector array using the cameras in smartphones. He gained laboratory and hardware experience characterizing camera sensors and designing test fixtures for experiments, as well as through exposure to Android application development and testing.