Thomas Nield is a consultant, instructor, and author who has built a career on making technical subjects relatable to people who find them intimidating. He is the founder of Nield Consulting Group, where he applies data analysis, machine learning, and mathematical optimization to real business problems, and he teaches regularly for O’Reilly Media and the University of Southern California on data analysis, machine learning, mathematical optimization, and practical artificial intelligence.

At USC, Thomas teaches AI System Safety, a course focused on developing systematic approaches for identifying AI-related hazards in aviation and ground vehicles. His perspective, that intelligent systems need the same safety discipline as the physical systems they assist, is increasingly relevant as AI moves into critical domains.

He is the author of three books: Essential Math for Data Science and Getting Started with SQL, both published by O’Reilly, and Learning RxJava, published by Packt. His writing favors building things from scratch at least once, so practitioners understand what the black boxes are actually doing.

Thomas is also the founder and inventor of Yawman Flight, a company developing universal handheld flight controls for flight simulation and unmanned aerial vehicles, bringing together his passion for aviation, engineering, and approachable design.