I was recently reflecting on this post–discussing the intersection between marketing and data science–when I started to realize how little I knew about data science. Sure, I’m privy to a lot of smart-sounding conversations around machine learning and natural language processing, but if I really want to understand the field, the nuances and the key players, I realized I needed to enlist a little help.
So I asked the People Pattern data science team, “Data science team, if I were to start keeping tabs on some data scientists aside from yourselves, where would I begin?” A lot of names were thrown around, but I feel confident we’re off to a pretty good start, below:
Five Data Scientists to Watch
1. Hillary Mason
Scientist at Accel, formerly at bit.ly
Hillary Mason was an early blogger, presenter and advocate for data science. She’s a member of the Technology and Innovation Advisory Council, and founded HackNY, opening the New York startup community up to engineering students. We’re certainly not alone in our assertion–she has been featured in Glamour Magazine, in the Forbes 40 under 40 list, and in Fast Company as one of the top women in the field.
2. Josh Wills
Director of Data Science at Cloudera, formerly at Google
Josh Wills is an influential speaker on the data science circuit, and a developer of open source software for Cloudera. He carries an impressive mix of statistics and machine learning expertise, interwoven with big data technology experience. Prior to Cloudera and Google, he was a statistician at employment metasearch engine site Indeed (shout out!).
3. Alex Smola
Professor at Carnegie Mellon, Visiting Scientist at Google
Alex Smola is a machine learning expert with a vast knowledge of big data issues, who specializes in kernel methods and unsupervised information extraction. He is a published author and owner of a popular data science blog, Adventures in Data Land. In other words, it’s safe to assume he knows what he’s talking about.
4. Lillian Lee
Professor at Cornell
Lillian Lee is often credited with creating sentiment analysis. She is frequently found in trade press, and has composed an abundance of academic publications. She was named an Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Fellow in 2013, and has also been presented the Cornell University Provost’s Award for Distinguished Scholarship.
5. Hanna Wallach
Researcher at Microsoft Research NYC, Assistant Professor at UMass Amherst
Hanna Wallach has done a great deal of academic work, particularly on topic models, and specializes in machine learning methods to extract new insights into the ways people interact. Along with Hillary Mason, Hanna was featured in Glamour as one of the top women in tech. She is an open source mentor for women, and co-founded the annual Women in Machine Learning Workshop.
This list only scratches the surface of data scientists the People Pattern team admires, and who’s tactics we emulate daily. We’ll be following up with a Data Scientists to Watch Part II, but in the meantime, tell us, who are we missing?
Request a customized demo of the People Pattern platform here.
Recent Comments