Hello There! I'm a recent graduate from the University of California, Berkeley with degrees in Applied Mathematics (focus in Economics) and Data Science. Now I work as a Data Scientist for Proofpoint!
I'm an avid bay area sports fan, slowly improving home cook, and as a lefty I find it impossible to use some daily tools (brooms, scissors, can openers, etc.). Of course, I'm also in love with data and pretty much all aspects of it. Staring at data all day has been something I've grown to love.
For a more formal look into my experiences, check out my resume
My Passion
I was once told that "anything data" can't be a passion, it was too broad. While I agree that it is very broad, I also disagree that it can't be your passion. I firmly believe that data can be your passion, any kind of data whether it be small or large, about health or advertisements. What I love about data is deeper than just the data itself and what it represents. It goes back further, before I even knew what data science was.
The cliché statement everyone uses is that data tells a story, but it's also more than that. It reveals something about human nature when analyzed correctly. The whole point of machine learning is to replace human tasks with a computer, yet almost every human task involves understanding something about human nature. So, in essence, we're building models that understand human nature. In order to build those models, we need to learn about human behavior. So, the work I do let's me learn more about humans, what people are like, how they (re)act and most importantly, why they're driven to these actions and that's why I love it so much.
What I Do Now
Data Scientist at Proofpoint
I work on threat research and solving cutting edge enterprise security problems with machine learning tools.
Blogging
I do these blog posts every now and again (on this website... that's probably how you found this page anyways haha). It gives me an outlet to discover new and interesting ideas and datasets. Cybersecurity isn't the only thing that interests me, so I'll go out and find some data on some other stuff that I find to be really cool. I also use this as a way to learn things that I'm not particularly good at and practice. Nothing monetary about this, just a fun little hobby.
What I've Done
Teaching
I've TA'd CS61A and CS88 at UC Berkeley. I was an Outstanding (under)Graduate Student Instructor as well! I also tutored stem courses at Cañada College, and taught middle schoolers how to code.
I love teaching! There are a lot of struggles that come with teaching, but I love teaching for the moments where I push a student just enough to where they get to the answer on their own. When their face goes from despair and heartbreak, from working on some recursive tree problem for hours, to the biggest smile and widest eyes possible.
I can't tell you how many times I've screwed this up though. I accidentally give the student the answer or I don't give enough help that it ends up frustrating them. However, in the end, I learn a lot from teaching. I've learned how to explain things differently and I've gained a lot of empathy for those who are learning things for the first time.
Data Science
I've interned with Proofpoint, worked with Apigee, and held research at San Francisco State University.
- Proofpoint: Very very big and scary security data. Built a compromised email account detection system
- Apigee: Small-medium sized, very messy and sometimes inconsistent marketing and sales data. Created a propensity to buy/expand algorithm.
- SF State: Theoretical results with real-time muscle-movement data. Made a hand-gesture prediction android application.
These are the really cool classes I've taken that have helped me with all the work I've done above: