Data Science

Jacob Feldgoise

Data Research Analyst Print Bio

Jacob Feldgoise is a Data Research Analyst at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET). His work explores U.S.-China technology competition, China’s foreign influence, and emerging technologies talent flows. Previously, Jacob was a James C. Gaither Junior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He has worked for the U.S. House of Representatives and the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office. He also studied Mandarin in Shanghai on a Boren Scholarship. Jacob holds a B.S. in Policy and Management with an additional major in Science, Technology, and Public Policy and a minor in Chinese Studies from Carnegie Mellon University.

In the first of a series of publications, CSET and CNAS outline one potential avenue for the U.S. government to cut off Chinese access to controlled chips via cloud computing, as well its pros, cons, and limitations.

As technology competition intensifies between the United States and China, governments and policy researchers are looking for metrics to assess each country’s relative strengths and weaknesses. One measure of technology innovation increasingly used by the policy community is research output. Drawing on CSET’s experiences over the last four years, this post shares our best practices for using research output to study national technological competition and inform public policy.

In an opinion piece for Tech Policy Press, CSET's Krystal Jackson, Karson Elmgren, Jacob Feldgoise, and their coauthor Andrew Critch wrote about computational power as a key factor driving AI progress.

China’s AI Workforce

November 2022

U.S. policies on artificial intelligence education and the AI workforce must grow, cultivate, attract, and retain the world’s best and brightest. Given China’s role as a producer of AI talent, understanding its AI workforce could provide important insight. This report provides an analysis of the AI workforce demand in China using a novel dataset of 6.8 million job postings. It then outlines potential implications along with future reports in this series.

In recent years, concern has grown about the risks of Chinese nationals studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects at U.S. universities. This data brief estimates the number of Chinese students in the United States in detail, according to their fields of study and degree level. Among its findings: Chinese nationals comprise 16 percent of all graduate STEM students and 2 percent of undergraduate STEM students, lower proportions than were previously suggested in U.S. government reports.

CSET research sheds light on the backgrounds and career paths of nearly 3,600 awardees in China’s Youth Thousand Talents Plan. While concerns over China’s recruitment of science and technology experts for military-supporting roles are legitimate, this brief finds that the vast majority of YTTP awardees receive civilian-oriented job offers.

Policymakers continue to debate the ability of the United States to attract and retain top international talent. This Issue Brief assesses how many international Ph.D. graduates across various STEM fields and nationalities intend to stay in the United States after completing their degrees.