Patrick Ball

Patrick Ball
Dr. Patrick Ball after giving the talk "Data Mining for Good" at the 30th Chaos Communication Congress (30C3) in Hamburg.
Born	(1965-06-26) June 26, 1965 (age 52)
Alma mater	University of Michigan
Occupation	Scientist
Employer	Human Rights Data Analysis Group
Known for	Human Rights Stats
Title	Executive Director

Patrick Ball (born June 26, 1965) is a scientist who has spent more than twenty years conducting quantitative analysis for truth commissions, non-governmental organizations, international criminal tribunals, and United Nations missions in El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, South Africa, Chad, Sri Lanka, East Timor, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Kosovo, Liberia, Perú, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Syria. As executive director of Human Rights Data Analysis Group, he assists human rights defenders by conducting rigorous scientific and statistical analysis of large-scale human rights abuses. He received his bachelor of arts degree from Columbia University, and his doctorate from the University of Michigan.

Patrick Ball served as an expert witness in testimony at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia against Slobodan Milosevic, the former President of Serbia. He was also an expert witness for the Prosecution at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in Milutinović et al. (IT-05-87). In 2013 Dr. Ball provided expert testimony in Guatemala's Supreme Court in the trial of General José Efraín Ríos Montt, the de facto president of Guatemala in 1982-1983. Gen. Ríos was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity; it was the first time ever that a former head of state was found guilty of genocide in his own country. Dr. Ball also testified in 2013 in the trial of Guatemala's former national police chief, Héctor Rafael Bol de la Cruz, who was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the disappearance of a student union leader. In September 2015, Patrick provided expert testimony in the trial of former President of Chad, Hissène Habré. HRDAG’s analysis showed that the death rate for political prisoners was much higher than for adult men in Chad: 90 to 540 times higher. On its worst day in the time period for which data were analyzed, the mortality rate was 2.37 deaths per 100 prisoners. During a nine-month period in 1986-1987, the mortality rate in Habré’s prisons was higher than that of US POWs in Japanese custody during World War II.