Paul DePodesta, the economist whose data analytics expertise was the backbone of the baseball movie "Moneyball," has joined the Scripps Translational Science Institute faculty.
A Harvard graduate, Mr. DePodesta was on the management team of the Oakland Athletics, the professional baseball team in Oakland, Calif., as assistant general manager to Billy Beane, who was the general manager of the team.
This relationship and the story of the Oakland A's, as the team is nicknamed, was depicted in "Moneyball," a 2011 film based on the book by the same name published in 2003.
At STSI, Mr. DePodesta will serve as an assistant professor of bioinformatics on a part-time basis. He will continue serving his primary role as vice president of player development and scouting for the MLB team the New York Mets.
"In disciplines as disparate as baseball, financial services, trucking and retail, people are realizing the power of data to help make better decisions," Mr. DePodesta said in a statement. "Medicine is just beginning to explore this opportunity, but it faces many of the same barriers that existed in those there sectors — deeply held traditions, monolithic organizational and operational structures and a psychological resistance to change.
"Being part of the STSI faculty allows me to apply the things I've learned in baseball to a critical sector of our lives and our economy that is ripe for this kind of revolution," Mr. DePodesta said.
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