Leadership
Stephen D. Coffey
Stephen D. Coffey
Stephen D. Coffey
Chief Executive Officer
Stephen D. Coffey is Chief Executive Officer of Sentinel Data Sciences and a data intelligence leader with more than two decades of experience designing surveillance systems, identifying patterns in complex datasets, and translating operational data into actionable leadership decisions.
Before founding Sentinel, Stephen served for more than 20 years within the NYPD COMPSTAT environment, including as Principal Crime Analyst supporting the Transit Bureau, Bronx and Queens Crime Analysis Unit. In that role, he led crime trend surveillance, pattern detection, anomaly identification, performance reporting, and executive-ready intelligence products for command leadership. His work required disciplined data review, rapid interpretation of emerging signals, and the ability to convert fragmented operational information into clear, decision-ready reporting.
Stephen brings that same surveillance discipline to clinical research. At Sentinel Data Sciences, he applies COMPSTAT-grade methodology to sponsor and CRO-supported clinical programs, helping study teams identify data gaps, trends, inconsistencies, and operational drift earlier in the trial lifecycle. His approach emphasizes structured review, traceability, fit-for-purpose reporting, and timely escalation of issues that may affect study execution, database lock readiness, or regulatory-quality outputs.
As CEO, Stephen leads Sentinel’s data programming, reporting, and surveillance analytics strategy. His work focuses on building dynamic, protocol-specific reports that support sponsors, CRO partners, clinical operations, biometrics, safety, and executive stakeholders. Rather than providing a generic tool for teams to configure, Sentinel delivers tailored reporting and hands-on support designed around each study’s protocol, data structure, risk profile, and decision milestones.
Stephen’s leadership reflects Sentinel’s core operating principle: clinical data should be actively monitored, interpreted, and translated into action before issues become late-stage problems. His focus on signal detection, data quality oversight, and executive-ready reporting helps sponsors move with greater speed, clarity, and confidence.
Ester Salmán
Stephen D. Coffey
Stephen D. Coffey
Chief Scientific Officer
Ester Salmán serves as Chief Scientific Officer of Sentinel Data Sciences, providing scientific, medical-translational, and client-facing leadership across Sentinel’s clinical trial surveillance model. She is a clinical research and development executive specializing in CNS drug development, endpoint strategy, psychometrics, and precision measurement.
For more than 25 years, Ester has worked at the intersection of clinical characterization, measurement quality, and development strategy, with a focus on strengthening signal detection and interpretability in psychiatric and CNS programs. Her experience spans Phase I–III CNS development and late-stage clinical programs, including leadership across study design, endpoint strategy, regulatory positioning, CRO selection, and cross-functional alignment among Clinical Development, Biometrics, Safety, Regulatory, Medical Writing, and Medical Affairs.
At Sentinel, Ester partners with biotech and pharmaceutical sponsors to translate clinical and medical objectives into protocol-specific surveillance priorities, blinded review strategies, and decision-ready outputs. Her work helps sponsors, lead statisticians, clinical operations teams, and study leaders identify data gaps, inconsistencies, endpoint concerns, operational drift, and measurement-related risks earlier in the trial lifecycle, reducing downstream rework and late-stage surprises before database lock.
A defining focus of Ester’s work is the integration of structured diagnostic characterization, rater reliability systems, ongoing surveillance, and blinded data review into clinical development strategy. This measurement-driven approach helps reduce avoidable variance, strengthen endpoint integrity, and improve confidence in decision-making at key development inflection points.
Across biopharma and academic medicine, Ester has held senior leadership, founding, and advisory roles in clinical research organizations, building scalable models that align scientific rigor with disciplined measurement oversight. She works with executive teams to ensure that clinical outcomes are interpretable, defensible, and aligned with the underlying clinical signal rather than obscured by measurement noise.