Professional Bio

James “Jay” Yonamine (2007) is head of technology and data science for the Legal Organization at Google, where he leads the patent data science team and a group of patent engineers. He has helped transform how Google approaches patent quality across its 60,000-plus patent portfolio, developing tools that leverage artificial intelligence to assess patent breadth and similarity and creating dashboards to track and enhance patent quality. Yonamine also spearheaded a large-scale cleanup of Google’s intellectual property data, correcting more than 200,000 records. He earned an MA (2011) and PhD (2013) in political science from Penn State, where his research on international conflict advanced forecasting methods for civil war, market fluctuations, and other outcomes. Yonamine has established an undergraduate scholarship in the College of the Liberal Arts, mentors students through the Liberal Arts Alumni Mentor Program, and serves on the California Advisory Board for TechBridge Girls. He lives in New York City.