Information Analyst Supports the IRS' Joint Operations Center
Dell Conate
July 2011
 |
MITRE information systems engineer Dell Conate focuses on improving data analysis and promoting collaboration between the federal and state agencies at the IRS' Joint Operations Center for National Fuel Tax Compliance (JOC) in Crystal City, Va. |
|
|
Dell Conate, who has spent most of his MITRE career at sponsor sites in New Carrollton, Md., and Crystal City, Va., has always liked challenges—both personal and professional ones—and is willing to explore the unusual to accomplish his objectives.
This aspect of his personality is particularly useful given his job as an information systems engineer at MITRE's Center for Enterprise Modernization (CEM), the FFRDC that MITRE operates for the IRS and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Conate works with all types of data and information systems and provides a variety of technical consulting, management support, and analysis to his IRS customers.
Improving Data Analysis
Conate, who came to MITRE in 2006, has spent much of the past three years supporting the IRS' Joint Operations Center for National Fuel Tax Compliance (JOC). MITRE developed the JOC as a pilot program several years ago to provide a clearer picture of the fuel supply chain in the U.S. and to help the government develop stronger monitoring tools to ensure compliance.
Conate's role on the JOC has focused on improving data collection and integration, developing anomaly and fraud detection strategies, and promoting collaboration among the federal and state organizations involved.
"My day-to-day work activities usually include collaborating with an IRS employee on a particular hypothesis we're exploring to detect possible fraudulent activities," he says. "Often we'll create a plan for testing the hypothesis, gather information, use various JOC tools to analyze the data, and then identify key information that may exhibit anomalous activities related to non-payment or non-compliance of fuel taxes."
One of the most challenging aspects of the JOC project is compiling and analyzing data from multiple sources. "The crux of the problem is that we're taking data from different federal and state agencies as well as commercial sources. They each have their own unique classification and coding systems for identifying the same products, the same locations, or the same entities making it extremely difficult to integrate information and piece together a comprehensive picture of the fuel industry."
These different coding systems originally made it difficult for the JOC to link the sources together and make proper comparisons. "So MITRE created a cross-reference library using various scoring algorithms to determine how close values between two sources are to each other and validate whether a proper match has been found."
"I've really enjoyed my work for the JOC," he says, "I'm constantly exploring and testing various ways potential tax fraud and tax evasion could be committed. This makes it a very dynamic and creative working environment."
Updating a Legacy System
Earlier in his MITRE career, Conate supported another project for the IRS called Consolidated Decision Analytics (CDA). The goal of CDA was to enhance a legacy routing system. "Correct routing increases work efficiency, employee satisfaction, and customer service." he explains. "The legacy system's predictive models needed refreshing and the case routing rules were difficult to change because they were hard-coded into the system."
As a business strategy and technical adviser for the CDA project, Conate provided technical guidance on the redesign of the system. The new design incorporated two significant additions. "First, we added improved predictive data analysis technology that provided more accurate predictive models. Second, we added a business-rules engine that allowed for dynamic and flexible business-rule changes within the system."
Adventures Across the Globe
Just as his day job sometimes focuses on finding the anomaly in a data set, Conate often seeks the unusual in his free time as well. "I've always been an adventure seeker. I try to do something out of the ordinary, whether it's trying extreme sports, traveling to a completely unfamiliar destination, or eating exotic foods."
These adventures have taken him all around the globe. "I've gone skydiving in Mexico, hang gliding and whitewater rafting in West Virginia, and trekked through the jungles of Vietnam on an elephant. I've also parasailed in Key West, swum with sting rays and sharks in the Grand Caymans, eaten 17-day-old duck embryos in the Philippines, and climbed a mountain to see the world's largest sitting Buddha in Hong Kong."
Next up: mountain climbing in South America. "I'm hoping to hike the Inca trail on the way to Machu Picchu in Peru this year," he says.
—by Kay M. Upham
Related Information
Articles and News
Technical Papers and Presentations
Websites
|
