Alex
Braunstein

Experienced leader who enjoys creating happy, healthy, productive teams. I have years of experience leading hundreds of people and optimizing budgets of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Career

Work & Education History

LinkedIn Profile
Apple 14 yrs 1 mo

Senior Director, AIML Evaluation

May 2025 – Present · Cupertino, CA · Hybrid

Leading the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AIML) Evaluation group. A passionate, performant and dedicated group of software engineers, data scientists, data engineers, privacy experts, and ML engineers responsible for building infrastructure, creating novel methodology, and partnering with product groups across Apple to measure, understand, and proactively improve all of our products.

Senior Director, AIML Measurement

May 2024 – May 2025 · Cupertino, CA · Hybrid

Apple

Senior Director, Maps Evaluation & SRE

Apr 2022 – Apr 2024 · Cupertino, CA

Leading the Maps Evaluation and SRE Teams. Measuring, understanding, and qualifying the experience of Apple Maps users to enable the team to proactively and rapidly improve it, and deliver Maps reliably, at high quality and low cost.

Director, Maps Evaluation

Sep 2016 – Apr 2022 · Cupertino, CA

Head of Evaluation Metrics – Maps, Senior Engineering Manager

Oct 2013 – Sep 2016 · Cupertino, CA

Head of Metrics – Maps and iTunes, Engineering Manager

Mar 2013 – Oct 2013 · Cupertino, CA

Apple

Senior Statistician

Mar 2012 – Mar 2013 · Cupertino, CA

Chomp 10 mos

Software Engineer

May 2011 – Feb 2012

Google 1 yr 9 mos

Senior Search Quality Statistician

Apr 2011 – Apr 2011

Search Quality Statistician

Aug 2009 – Apr 2011

Led Human Evaluation for Google social initiatives (social search, +1).

Software Engineering Statistician Intern

May 2008 – Aug 2008

Improving search quality via query stratification.

Domino's Pizza

Consultant

Aug 2007 – Dec 2007

Developing and analyzing test market methodology.

SIG
Susquehanna International Group

Quant Research Intern

May 2007 – Aug 2007

Volatility forecasting, American option valuation techniques.

Olive Garden

Server

Jan 2002 – Apr 2002

Serving mediocre Italian cuisine with a smile.

Education

The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

PhD, Statistics

2005 – 2009

PhD Thesis: Bayesian Statistical Models for HIV Evolution

Masters Thesis: American Option Approximations

Swarthmore College

BA, Applied Mathematics & Economics

2002 – 2005

Learning in an arboretum with hippies.

Research

Publications

Apple Intelligence Foundation Language Models: Tech Report 2025

arXiv 2025

Bayesian Hierarchical Modeling of the HIV Evolutionary Response to Therapy

Journal of the American Statistical Association Aug 2013

From Karen to Katie: Using Baby Names to Study Cultural Evolution

Psychological Science Jun 2012

A Hierarchical Bayesian Variable Selection Approach to Major League Baseball Hitting Metrics

Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports Oct 2011

Indirect Content Privacy Surveys: Measuring Privacy Without Asking About It

SOUPS Jan 2011

Long- and Short-Term Selective Forces on Malaria Parasite Genomes

PLOS Genetics Sep 2010

A Point-Mass Mixture Random Effects Model for Pitching Metrics

Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports 2010

Consistency and Pythagoras

Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports Jan 2010

A spatially varying two-sample recombinant coalescent, with application to HIV escape response

NIPS Jan 2008

Hobbies

Magic: The Gathering

Magic: The Gathering is a hobby I'm passionate about. Browse my decks below.

⚔️ View My Decks on Moxfield

I occasionally post about things on Twitter (X).

𝕏 @alexbraunstein