Founder, Data 2 the People
Elena Tej Grewal grew up in New Haven, Connecticut. The daughter of an engineer and a scientist, her mother was one of the first women faculty hired in her department at the Yale School of Medicine. Grewal attended a public school in New Haven with many low-income, struggling students before attending an elite private high school. The contrast in the resources at her two schools led her to ask why the resources were so different when all the children had been born equal? What could reduce that inequality? How could people’s lives be easier and better?
Grewal attended Yale University and majored in ethics, politics, and economics, looking to answer her questions from a public policy perspective. She then attended Stanford University to pursue a PhD in education. It was there she realized data held the key to answering her questions. Inspired by incredible classes in statistics and computer science at Stanford, Grewal focused her PhD research on large-scale data analysis of the impact of education policies and on modeling social networks in schools. In her final year of her PhD, she wondered if it might be interesting to do an internship at a tech company and was introduced to a small company called Airbnb.
Fascinated by data on people traveling all over the world, Grewal decided to take a full-time job as one of Airbnb’s first data scientists in 2012. She was quickly promoted to manager and, four years later, became the head of data science, leading what became a team of more than 200 data scientists. One of her proudest accomplishments was recruiting the best data scientists in the world to that team, including 45% women, by removing bias in the hiring process and creating a team culture that was welcoming.
Leaving Airbnb in 2019, Grewal returned to her roots and started a small data science consulting group dedicated to tackling problems for the public good—working with data for political causes, criminal justice, and environmental concerns. She moved back to her hometown and started teaching data science at the Yale School of Environment. Now she runs her own ice cream shop, Elena’s on Orange, using data on a small scale to optimize the business and create a wonderful community hub. She is also part of several community groups dedicated to improving the quality of life in New Haven. She lives with her husband and young daughter and is excited to continue to serve the public good with her statistics skills, entrepreneurial spirit, and commitment to justice.
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