Dr. Lina Song: Harvard PhD Graduate Turned Founder and CEO of AI Startup Doogooda
- Miguel Virgen, PhD Student in Business
- Aug 26
- 4 min read
Lina Song is a Model, Founder, and Assistant Professor of Operations and Technology at the University College London School of Management. Lina’s research interests include providing operations management insight to public policy decision-making problems. With her experience and academic rigour she has the ability to advise company’s on how to design policy levers to improve the delivery of social goods and services. Lina Song completed her Ph.D. at Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, with a concentration in decision science and health policy, under the supervision of Professor Soroush Saghafian (Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University). Before Harvard, she earned an MA degree in Statistics from Yale University and a BS degree in Applied and Computational Mathematics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
Beyond Lina Song’s rigorous academic achievements she is also making an innovative impact in launching Doogooda, and information services company. Her rigorous education underpins her approach to complex problems in healthcare, public policy, and finance. In addition to her Ivy League credentials, Song has worked as a researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the World Bank, experiences that exposed her to real-world policy and development challenges early in her career. These roles gave her on-the-ground insight into the operations of healthcare systems and international aid projects, setting the stage for her later leadership in business and venture initiatives.
Early Career: Research and Consulting
Even as a doctoral student, Song took on professional roles that bridged research and policy. In 2014, she spent a short-term consulting stint at the World Bank, contributing to international development projects. Although brief, this position introduced her to global economic and social issues, complementing her technical expertise with development experience. She then focused on healthcare operations research, joining the Center for Surgery and Public Health at Massachusetts General Hospital from 2015 through 2019. During this period, Song held dual appointments: she was both a researcher at MGH and a doctoral candidate at Harvard. Her work involved analyzing large hospital datasets; for instance, she co-authored studies on how integration of care systems and payment policies affect hospital performance. The analytic and problem-solving techniques she developed in hospitals and at the World Bank became tools she could apply to business and finance contexts.
Academic Career and Teaching
After completing her Ph.D., Song joined the faculty at University College London (UCL), where she is an Assistant Professor of Operations and Technology in the School of Management. At UCL, she teaches courses on big data analytics and healthcare operations, bringing cutting-edge research into the classroom. Song has also engaged the broader academic community through invited talks. Notably, she has delivered keynote lectures on big data, AI, and policy at institutions such as Cambridge University and Oxford University. These international engagements underscore her cross cultural expertise and position as a thought leader at the intersection of technology, policy, and management. Her dual role as professor and researcher allows her to mentor new analysts and to pursue interdisciplinary projects, strengthening the link between academic study and real world applications.
Entrepreneurship and Venture Leadership
Building on her academic and research credentials, Lina Song has taken on entrepreneurial roles, most prominently as founder and CEO of Doogooda (두구다), an AI-driven analytics startup based in Seoul. Launched around 2023–2024, Doogooda develops predictive models that help businesses and governments make better decisions using big data. The company’s platform aggregates diverse data sources to forecast trends, for example, guiding store location choices or forecasting consumer demand. According to reports, Song’s mission with Doogooda is to replace intuition based decisions with data-driven forecasts, thereby reducing inefficiencies for entrepreneurs and public agencies.
International Perspective and Strategy
Song’s profile is distinctly global. Born and educated in Korea, she moved to the United States for high school and higher education, and later took on roles in Europe and Asia. She is fluent in Korean and English, and her career has spanned multiple countries: research at Harvard and MGH in the U.S., teaching in the U.K., and running a startup in South Korea. This cross-cultural experience gives her a broad strategic outlook. As a global investment strategist, Song draws on her international background to identify opportunities across markets. Her academic work on emerging economies (e.g. development research) and her startup’s global ambitions (Doogooda plans expansion to the U.K. and beyond) both reflect her transnational focus. For instance, Doogooda’s predictive tools could serve not just Korean clients but also global insurers or retail chains; Song’s awareness of different health systems and consumer behaviors in Asia, Europe, and North America informs how she scales these solutions. Likewise, her stint at the World Bank gave her insight into development finance, a perspective that is valuable when evaluating international investments or advising on cross-border projects. In sum, her international academic and professional experience allows her to approach problems with both technical rigor and multicultural sensitivity – a combination that is particularly useful for strategic leadership in venture capital and development projects.
Conclusion and Future Directions
Lina Song represents a fusion of academic prowess and entrepreneurial drive. Her strong academic foundation in data analytics and health policy, combined with hands on roles in global health and development, positions her as a thought leader in data driven strategy. As CEO of Doogooda and as a faculty member at UCL, she continues to shape both industry and scholarship. Song’s journey from international schoolrooms to corporate boardrooms highlights the value of interdisciplinary, cross cultural expertise in the modern economy. Looking ahead, she is likely to expand Doogooda’s footprint beyond Korea and to influence investment in healthcare and AI technologies worldwide.
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