Kathy Pham


Kathy Pham is a Vietnamese American computer scientist and product leader. She has held roles in leadership, engineering, product management, and data science at Google, IBM, the Georgia Tech Research Institute, Harris Healthcare, and served as a founding product and engineering member of the United States Digital Service in the Executive Office of the President of the United States at The White House.
Pham is a Fellow and Faculty member at the Harvard Kennedy School where she created and teaches Product Management and Society, Fellow at Mozilla, Fellow at the Rita Allen Foundation, and Affiliate at the Harvard Berkman Klein Center where she co-founded and leads the Ethical Tech Group. At Mozilla, Pham co-leads the Responsible Computer Science Challenge and co-founded the Mozilla Fix the Internet Incubator. Pham founded Product and Society, which focuses on product management, ethics, and the public interest.

Early life and education

Pham’s parents were Vietnamese boat people, who spent several years in refugee camps before immigrating to the United States. Her brother, United States Marine Corps Captain David Pham, was presented the Purple Heart medal during combat operations in Afghanistan.
Pham attended Windsor Forest High School in Savannah, Georgia where she was a member of the volleyball team and graduated as Salutatorian of her graduating class.
Pham earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She also holds a Master of Science in Computer Science from both the Georgia Institute of Technology and Supelec, specializing in cryptography and human computer interaction. While in university, Pham was the chair of Georgia Tech's Women in Computing, director of technology at Phi Mu Fraternity, researcher in the Bio-Medical Informatics and Bio-Imaging Lab, and founded the southeast chapter of United for Sight.

Career

Pham began her career as a software engineer building flights simulation and healthcare interoperability software at the Georgia Tech Research Institute and Harris Healthcare. She then was a consultant and data scientist at IBM who focused on healthcare analytics. There, she also led IBM’s Employee Charitable Contribution Campaign and founded the After Hours Gaming League for with a team that made it to the league gaming finals. At Google, she held roles in product management, technical program management, and data science on Google Health, Google People Operations, and Google Search. She founded Google’s first Business Intelligence Summit, called SELECT*.

Pham left Google in 2014 to join and build the United States Digital Service, where she led and contributed to public services across the Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense, Precision Medicine Initiative, and Cancer Moonshot, spanning engineering, product management, and people operations. Pham was a guest speaker to the White House State of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, following the State of the Union address in 2015.
Pham was a 2017-2019 Fellow, and now Affiliate, at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, where her research spans technology, policy, healthcare, artificial intelligence, and the social responsibility and ethics of the tech industry. As a member of the , Pham's work addressed the ethics and governance of Artificial Intelligence with a focus on community involvement and community voices, and she co-founded ai-in-the-loop. Pham teaches Product Management and Society at the Harvard Kennedy School of government.
Pham is active with outreach and activism, and has been notable for bringing her infant daughter along for a keynote address prompting the hashtag #LittleKeynoteSpeaker. She works closely with immigrant communities to help navigate government services. Pham has served as an advisory board member of the Anita Borg Institute and the Make the Breast Pump Not Suck Initiative.
Pham is the founder and executive director of the Cancer Sidekick Foundation and the founder of the Boston Chapter of Women in Product. She coined the term Cancer Patient Sidekick.

Honors