Meet the Team

Instructors & Mentors

Our team consists of outstanding practicing data scientists. All mentors and instructors in our team come from our closely-knit and trusted network of data science professionals.

Raja Iqbal

CEO and Chief Data Scientist

Raja has worked at Microsoft Bing and Bing Ads in various research and development roles in data science and machine learning.

Adeel Ajaib

Lecturer at Qatar University

Adeel holds a Ph.D. in computational particle physics from the University of Delaware. He has taught physics at Ursinus College and Calpoly. Currently, he is passionately pursuing a career in data science.

Margaux Penwarden

Data Scientist at McKinsey & Company

Margaux is a data scientist at McKinsey & Company, Sydney. Margaux holds a Bachelor’s in Computer Science and Mathematics from Télécom Paristech (“Grande Ecole”), and a Master’s in Statistics from Imperial College, London.

Vicky Clayton

Data Scientist

Vicky previously analysed data, specialising in causal inference, for a small research consultancy in London and worked on projects for governments, international organisations and companies such as the UN and Siemens. Vicky has a BA in Human Sciences from Oxford University and an MSc in Decision Science.

Pier Lorenzo Paracchini

Software Developer (Principal) at Equinor

A generalist with a passion for people, data, and technology currently working as an enthusiast software developer with a data scientist twist in the Software Innovation team at Equinor. He is focused on exploring new data-driven ideas and challenges by using predictive analytics, machine learning, and software engineering practices.

Parvez Ahammad

Senior Director and Head of Data Science at BlackThorn Therapeutics

Parvez has an extensive background in computer vision, machine learning, image processing and signal processing. He possesses several years of experience in working with multi-disciplinary cross-functional teams and translating real-world problems into a mathematical setting. He is experienced in diverse application domains such as medical imaging, bioinformatics, neuroscience, multimedia delivery, remote sensing and camera networks.
Parvez obtained his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from University of California at Berkeley.

Melissa Dalis

Data Scientist at Uber

Melissa is a Data Scientist at Uber. Before Uber, Melissa worked as data scientist at Square supporting the product team with her own machine learning models. Melissa got a B.S in Computer Science and Mathematics with a minor in Economics from Duke University. Her thesis research was in computational game theory, applying game theoretic models to prevent cheating in casinos.

Jennifer Davis

Founder, Senior Managing Principal at Bot Box Consultancy

Jennifer is a Research Fellow in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Texas, Austin. Jennifer’s bioinformatics and computational work is centered on taking very large, complex data sets and applying data visualization techniques, iterative corrections and machine learning algorithms to derive meaningful interpretation. Jennifer holds a PhD in Tumor Biology from Georgetown University in Washington DC, and possesses 10+ years experience using statistical methods and modeling for cancer research.

Pavel Dmitriev

Vice President, Data Science at Outreach.io

Pavel has extensive skills in machine learning, data mining, and distributed systems. Formerly a principal data scientist at Microsoft, Pavel is familiar with web content management algorithms and real-time content analysis. Pavel obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Cornell University.

Elissa Goldner

Senior Software Engineer at OhmConnect

Elissa’s interests include using smart grid big data, predictive analytics, and machine learning to create data-driven solutions to energy efficiency and electrical grid management. She currently works as the senior software engineer with OhmConnect. Elissa received her M.S. in Energy Tech. Engineering from Stanford University and her B.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.

Roman Holenstein

Machine Learning Engineer at Apple

Roman obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of British Columbia. He worked on Monte Carlo framework method based on Markov chain and sequential Monte Carlo for efficient sampling from high-dimensional distributions. Roman specializes in Monte Carlo methods (MCMC, SMC), Bayesian statistics, machine learning, natural language understanding. He previously worked as a Senior Sceintist with Bing query understanding team at Microsoft.

Julie Letchner

Senior Data Scientist at Textio

Julie is a senior data scientist at Textio, with expertise in machine learning and statistical experimentation. She has applied and honed her skills on projects ranging from sensor-based activity recognition, to marketing response prediction models, to deduplication and ranking algorithms for business listings. Prior to joining Microsoft in 2010, she earned her undergraduate degree at Stanford University and her PhD at the University of Washington, both in computer science. Julie is passionate about teaching and about outreach and mentorship to groups that are underrepresented in computing careers.

Yuan Liu

Data Scientist at C3 IoT

Yuan has extensive statistical modeling experience in linear models, logistic models, time series models, decision trees, model regularization, and cross validation. Yuan has a PhD in Economics from the University of California at Davis.

David Lockhart

Data Scientist and Principal at Driven By Data

David is an experienced statistician. He specializes in using statistical analysis and mathematical modeling to aid in data-driven decision making and forecasting.

Ike Okonkwo

Data Scientist at Zynga

Ike has spent time consulting with fortune 500 companies and startups and has helped them discover and extract actionable insights from their data to drive business decisions. He has worked on a variety of problems from algorithmic trading to auction price prediction and using machine learning for intent resolution. Ike holds a Masters in Industrial & Systems Engineering and Bachelors degree in Physics and Electrical Engineering. He is excited about the possibilities that abound with the proliferation of data.

John Park

Principal Data Scientist at Hewlett Packard Enterprise

John is constantly amazed by the amounts of data available around us and thinks about how to squeeze the maximum amount of meaning from those data. He also thinks about how to offload as much work as possible to machines without losing accuracy. John holds a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a BA in Cognitive Science from UC Berkeley. John worked on automatic computer virus classification using machine learning and collaborative filtering using social networks.

Fahad Shah

Distinguished Research Scientist at HP

Fahad has over a decade of research, software development, and teaching experience in the area of machine learning, data mining, and distributed systems. He has worked with Bing data mining and social incubation teams on a variety of problems in bot detection, data mining, automatic detection of cause of any abnormal shift in web traffic patterns, user behavior analysis, and multi-dimensional modeling.

Svetlana Strunjas

Machine Learning Engineer/ Tech Lead at eBay

Svetlana is a member of the technical staff at eBay, working as an Machine Learning Engineer in the Structured Data research team. She has also worked on the Search Frontend Applied Research Team at eBay. Prior to working at eBay, Svetlana was a Software Development Engineer at Microsoft. Svetlana holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Cincinnati, and she is skilled in data mining and machine learning.

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Data Science Dojo Team

Blair Heckel

Senior Marketing Manager

Blair holds a bachelor’s degree in Marketing from Washington State University and has a background of managing online communities.

Eric Durkopp

Video Producer

Eric Durkopp holds a bachelor’s degree of the arts in Film and Video studies from Central Washington University.

Arham Akheel

Business Analyst

Arham holds a Masters degree in Technology Management from Texas A&M University and has a background of managing information systems.

Sanjay Pant

Data Analyst

Sanjay holds bachelor’s degree in Business Studies with major in Accounting and is passionate about learning the skills required to gain insights from data.

Kelli Cook Garland

Event Planner

Kelli Cook Garland holds a bachelor’s degree in Communications from Eastern Washington University and has over ten years of experience in Event Planning and Coordination.

Ben Morrow

Video Editor/Storyteller

Ben holds a Masters degree in Digital Media from Northeastern University and has a background in video production.

Ahsan Khan

Data Engineer

Ahsan holds a bachelor’s Degree focused in Software Engineering from NED University of Engineering and Technology. He has a strong passion for data science, innovation and machine learning.

Sabrina Dominguez

Marketing and Communications Intern

Sabrina holds a B.S. in Business Administration with a specialization in Marketing Management from Central Washington University. She has a passion for Search engine optimization and marketing.

Julia Grosvenor