Dr Sam Rickman

Sam is a Principal Data Scientist at Made Tech, where he works with public-sector organisations to deploy, evaluate, and govern AI systems safely and responsibly. He remains affiliated with the Care Policy and Evaluation Centre (CPEC) at the London School of Economics as a Research Associate.

Sam’s research focuses on real-world applications of AI in the public sector. He has developed methods using Large Language Models (LLMs) to extract meaningful information from free-text case records, such as indicators of loneliness that are not captured in structured data. His work has also examined risks and biases in AI, including empirical evidence of gender bias in LLM-generated case notes. He is on the steering committee of the Data Science group at the Global Observatory of Long-Term Care.

Before moving into AI and data science, Sam worked in the public sector for over a decade. He managed a social care team in inner London and practised as a qualified social worker, supporting adults with complex needs.  Sam holds a PhD from LSE on the use of LLMs with unstructured administrative data in social care, an MA with distinction in Social Work from Goldsmiths College, and an MA (Cantab) in Social and Political Science. He writes code primarily in Python, R, with a smattering of other languages, which he shares on his GitHub.

Expertise

AI in Public Services, Data Science, Large Language Models, Social Care