Alumni Spotlights
Overview
*The interviews below took place Summer 2021.
ASENA DERIN CENGIZ
What program did you graduate from and when?
MS in Data Science, May 2019
What are you up to?
I’m a Manager on the Advanced Analytics Team at Mindshare (at WPP). I’ve been leading Mindshare’s Advanced Analytics work for BP, Church’s Chicken, ampm, and ARCO clients. I’ve also been participating in new business pitches where our team brings the Data Science offering to new Marketing clients for Mindshare.
What did you enjoy most about the Center for Data Science?
The challenge! It was great to grow so fast, work on so many projects, and get to work as a grader for Prof. Yann LeCun’s Deep Learning class.
How did your time at CDS help you in your success?
Having a master’s in Data Science allowed me to bring the analytic rigor to the table, which was a great supplement to my previous education in Management, as well.
What advice do you have for people who want to get started in data science?
Look for opportunities to participate in projects to broaden your vision (and portfolio) and be willing to take on the extra challenge.
YASH DESHPANDE
What program did you graduate from and when?
MS in Data Science, May 2020
What are you up to?
I’m currently working as a ML Engineer for Fresenius Medical Care, a healthcare company that specializes in kidney care. My responsibilities include operationalizing ML models, exploring opportunities for using NLP on free text, and advancing the company’s data-based decision making focus.
What did you enjoy most about the Center for Data Science?
TI had a great time collaborating with a very talented set of peers and learning as much from them as I did in class. I also thoroughly enjoyed all the NLP coursework and research opportunities at CDS
How did your time at CDS help you in your success?
CDS exposed me to a variety of applications for data science, across a wide range of domains. This made sure I could test the water and eventually pick a field of study that I enjoyed, without being pigeonholed into one thing. Also, of course, superb electives and rigorous coursework.
What advice do you have for people who want to get started in data science?
Many things are data science. ETL pipelines, data cleaning, data governance, analytics, machine learning, ML operations — each is its own creature. If you really want to get into data science, it doesn’t matter where you start, as long as you get to work with real-world data. Go for it!