Behind The Data Podcast with Andrea Jones-Rooy Launches Season Three

 It seems incongruent, at least, to have a comedian and a data analyst in the same body. However, Andrea Jones-Rooy has accomplished this seemingly impossible feat. She is the host of Behind the Data, which is launching its third season. 

Jones-Rooy says: "The world feels chaotic, the news is overwhelming. AI, tech, and 'the algorithms' are rapidly transforming the way we live, work and even interact with each other. It’s hard to know how to make sense of it all – much less what to do about it!"

Instead of throwing our hands up and feeling powerless, data-scientist and comedian Andrea Jones-Rooy offers listeners a path through the noise: data. It’s at the center of both our political divisions and the tech revolution happening all around us. Too many people think data is only for “math people” or tech nerds – that couldn’t be further from the truth. With her signature energetic style, Andrea Jones-Rooy draws upon her science and comedy chops to keep the technical accessible, the nerdy fun. 

Jones-Rooy explains that data powers AI and creepy modern marketing, but traveling upstream from this powerful resource, to questions such as:

- what to collect data on,
- how to turn an observable thing into a number,
- what we can and cannot learn 

Andrea Jones-Rooy empowers listeners to harness tools of data science in our own lives to better understand the world around us. 

Whether we’re trying to spot misinformation, understand why we can’t agree if the economy is healthy (is it?!), or even uncover the secrets of happiness – Andrea believes the very human step of creating the data in the first place can help us make more discoveries, improve our own lives, and even find common ground within the most divisive political and social issues of our time. 

Andrea Jones-Rooy is a unique voice who combines science with comedy to empower audiences of all education levels to combine data with curiosity to make discoveries. AJR helps people learn to cut through the noise, better understand our world, and take action on the issues that matter most. Particularly in the age of AI, data has never been more accessible, or misused, and now is the time to get clarity on how to really make sense of “data-driven” claims. 

Andrea Jones-Rooy holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Michigan. Formerly a professor of data science at NYU and a quantitative researcher at FiveThirtyEight, Andrea speaks and trains globally at organizations, from Fortune 500s to tech companies to the UN, on how to apply data science to their toughest problems. She currently hosts the podcast Behind the Data, and previously hosted the podcast Majoring in Everything. AJR is also a stand-up comedian and circus performer, although she has done neither at the UN (yet).

In season three, Behind the Data will explore the actual, evidence-based secrets of happiness, what’s actually in the jobs data that is being hyper-politicized at the moment, how Google’s X Moonshot uses data to solve huge problems, and much more – – all through the universal language of data. Fascinating guests and lively conversations take you way past the punditry and leave you with a totally fresh lens to understand the world. Come explore the human side of the data that powers our lives. 

Season three guests includes:
- Ben Casselman, New York Times economics correspondent on where jobs data comes from, what it means, how to think about it.
- Erica Groshen, former Commissioner of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics for the Obama administration (predecessor in that role to Erika McEntarfer whom Trump just fired) on what that job entails, whether they can influence the numbers as accused by Trump, what this firing means for using data going forward, and our understanding, overall, of our economy
- Astro Teller, ‘Captain of Moonshots’ at Google’s X, The Moonshot Factory
- Negin Farsad, Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me (NPR) regular panelist, host of Fake the Nation podcast, and former policy advisor for the City of New York working in statistics.
- Elisa Wells and Ushma Upadhyay of Plan C on politicized health data and the role abortion pills are currently playing for real people and in the culture war.
- And more!
Behind the Data is part of the popular Daily Tech News Show network, dedicated to improving our understanding of technology and society in a fast-paced, high-energy, and accessible way. 

Episode one was released on Saturday, August 23, on both the Daily Tech News Show and Behind the Data feeds. All subsequent new episodes drop weekly on Wednesdays starting August 27, 2025.

In our present world in the United States, facts, data, and evidence have somehow lost credibility to be replaced by misinformation, lies, fringe science, and conspiracy theories that are disconnected from reality.

We need a show like Behind the Data. Check out season three and listen to the archived episodes.