Department of Physics and Astronomy

Led a team of embedded data scientists that leveraged dashboards, deep-dive analyses, and predictive models to solve problems across customer experience, automation, and operations.Advocated best practices for experimentation emphasizing the importance of impact to decision making and the consideration of trade-offs between rigor and speed of execution.Partnered with recruiting to define the data science hiring priorities in a shifting market and refined strategies to attract diverse and exceptional talent through fair interview practices.

Managed a team of software engineers and applied data scientists responsible for building a recommendation platform that delivered 9-15% of site revenue in various years for Staples.Delivered a vision for personalization to executives across business and technology, creating an understanding of value added and priority for multiple distinct workstreams.Led a multi-year effort to migrate and enhance a legacy system from AWS/Clojure to Azure/Java/Python.Grew individuals on the team by fostering a team culture around delivering value, having a customer perspective, and collaborating across teams.

Took on a lead role surrounding analytics and insights derived from our recommendation products. Partnered with Senior leaders in product and business, communicating vision for ongoing improvements to the customer experience at Staples.Led multiple modeling efforts to make customer personalization the normal experience across the Staples ecosystem.

Owned the design, implementation, and ongoing support of data pipelines supporting nearly all recommendations models and experimental analyses using Apache Spark, Hadoop, Airflow and other tools.Developed numerous ML model pipelines deployed in production reaching millions of Staples customers with Python and ML frameworks like scikit-learn and Spark MLlib.Partnered with product and drove insights around overall recommendation direction, including initial conception of metrics, model rollout and post release analysis. Contributed to refinements to our in-house experimentation platform to allow faster iteration.

<> Lecture, lead discussions, lead / setup laboratories<> Curriculum development for introductory C++ and physics courses<> Exposure to the diverse backgrounds of international students interested in engineering fields<> Used online textbook for introductory physics

Project previously viewable at www.campusnow.com, no longer available at this time.<> Worked with a small team to help build an online education business<> Designed online educational tools using existing web services<> Authored content for an introductory physics book

My research focused on quantum magnetism, primarily through computational methods. I studied models of the parent compounds of the iron pnictide superconducting family and the rare earth pyrochlore spin ices. I employed a variety of monte carlo schemes, greens function methods, and ising series expansions to a proposed spin orbital model for the iron pnictides. In the case of the spin ices, I used a high temperature numerical linked cluster expansion to predict thermodynamic and magnetic properties.

I have led discussion and laboratory classes for both introductory calculus based physics for engineers/physical sciences and introductory physics for biological sciences. To be an effective teacher, I encourage students to reach answers by applying the appropriate physical concept and drawing on familiar situations to test their ideas using the scientific method. I balance leading students toward a solution and letting them experiment with applying new information. In laboratory settings I ask students to relate experimental conclusions to textbook lessons, making sure these two facets of a course reinforce each other as much as possible.

As an instructor for this summer program aimed at exposing high school students to fundamental ideas in science and mathematics, I gave short lectures and contributed to the curriculum for the biophysics section alongside UC Davis professors.The short and intensive schedule required a strict attention to student progress and the ability to quickly make adjustments when students found specific material difficult. I worked with individual students to design unique projects that applied simple physical concepts to the exciting intersection of modern computers and living organisms.I led sections three different years, 2008, 2010, 2011 - all with the same emphasis on computational biophysics.