Alumni Updates for 2013 Newsletter

I am currently a Senior Consultant at Junction Solutions (a nationwide ERP consulting company based out of the Bay Area).  I was hired directly after graduation from Cal Poly and in the last three years have advanced into a senior position.  I have had the opportunity to travel all across the nation for work to places including Atlanta, Seattle, and Denver to name a few. My main responsibility within my current projects has been the improvement and optimization of business processes, focusing in supply chain management.

I graduated in December 2011 with my BS in Applied Math and minor in Statistics. I worked for a year and a half at Allergan Medical in Santa Barbara as a statistical programmer. Now, I am in my first year in the graduate program at UCLA, working toward my MS in Biostatistics.  
Unfortunately, no Olympic medals for me...though I did complete my first half marathon! :)

I am currently in my fifth year of a Statistics Ph.D. program at Boston University and plan to graduate in May 2014. I had the wonderful opportunity to help grade the 2013 AP Statistics exam (alongside my favorite professors from Cal Poly) in June 2013 and I hope to join again in June 2014. I will also be getting married in June 2014. I look forward to finding a position somewhere in California to start at in Summer or Fall of 2014!

This summer I took our dreaded Basic Qualifying Exam and earned a PhD pass (vs. Master's pass or no pass).  It was a great relief to get that out of the way!  I was perhaps a bit too ambitious this semester, however, and I'm finding it difficult to adequately cover coursework, teaching duties, and research in any given week.  Grad school truly necessitates good time management, as I've learned.

I'm currently in my second year as a Statistics graduate student at NC State University.  This semester I am taking courses on Bayesian inference, computing, and measure theory, and I have just begun research with Dr. Brian Reich on spatial and temporal modeling of particulate matter levels across the Southeastern U.S via multi-resolution satellite image data.  Outside of academic life, I've been very active in running and exploring Raleigh's backroads.

I graduated from Cal Poly in 2009 and then attended CSU Long Beach for my master's degree in Statistics. Since graduating in 2011 I've been working as a Principal Statistician for the Department of Medicine Statistics Core at UCLA. We are a consulting group of approximately 10 (faculty/staff) statisticians who assist the medical school with clinical trials, research, manuscripts, posters, grants, and education. I also do some statistical consulting work on the side because I really enjoy it. I have adjusted well to living in West LA. There is so much to do down here and the weather is always perfect! I was in SLO last January to give a job talk to the current students and can't wait to go back. Feel free to contact me if you are a current student and have questions about graduate school, the job search, or general advice about the field. I can't thank the department enough for giving me a solid foundation in the field allowing me to pursue a rewarding and enjoyable career.

A few weeks after graduation, I interviewed with Chevron’s Environmental Management Company (EMC) and found out shortly after that I was accepted for the position. Chevron’s Environmental Management Company has been continuously expanding their processes to improve Health, Environment, and Safety. My role in the company is the Health, Environment, and Safety (HES) Technical Specialist. The company has found that my statistical background and college education are both essential assets to this particular sector of the company. Although I never imagined that I would be out in the oil fields wearing a hard hat and steel-toed boots, I am thoroughly overjoyed to work for such an established company. This job was just one of the changes I encountered post-graduation. In addition, I recently got engaged to another Cal Poly Alum. It is safe to say this school has provided me with a lifetime of happiness.

After graduating in 2008, I moved to Colorado and started the statistics graduate program at Colorado State.  I received my master's degree in 2010 and am currently preparing to defend my Ph.D. dissertation, and am working on job applications.  I've worked as a teaching and research assistant over the last five years, and have been very successful in both roles; in fact, I won a teaching award last summer.  Besides working on school, I have had a bit of time to travel - I've road-tripped to and from California 3.5 times and done quite a bit of camping along the way, and I've also been to Panama, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua.

After graduating Cal Poly back in 2011 I went on to get my Masters in Analytics at NC State. The program is an intensive one year program. It is more of an applied statistics degree with an emphasis on solving business problems, there is very little theory in the program. The degree also incorporates business skills such as corporate communication training, all work is done in teams, and a graduate project sponsored by a company with real data and a real problem. I would encourage any recent graduate or soon to be graduate to look into the program.
After graduating from NC State I took a job at Lowe's Home Improvement outside of Charlotte, NC. At Lowe's I am a Senior Statistical Analyst working on projects from all areas of the company. My Cal Poly and NC State degree are being put to use at Lowe's. On a daily basis I am creating models in SAS and apply different statistical techniques to business questions around the customer.

Right now, I am director of engineering and analytics for Disney Interactive Labs. I moved to San Francisco a few months ago, and I'm head of Disney's San Francisco office. We just released Mickey Video on the Apple App Store, and are working on bringing machine learning and content recommendations to disney.com and other mobile applications

I recently graduated in Spring 2013 and am currently a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles. I am pursuing a M.S. in Biostatistics and also working as an Educational Consultant at Mathtopian Preparation Inc. Recently, I attended the 2013 SAS Analytics conference and was a Student Poster Contest Winner. I will also be presenting at the Western Users of SAS Software conference in November 2013.

I recently started with Ask.com in Oakland after working with a sister company (located in the same building) for the past 3 years. I manage a team of three as a Senior Manager of Analytics & Yield Optimization. Our main focus is running all A/B testing to optimize revenue for Ask.com and its subsidiaries although I also get tapped for new projects in a more cross-functional role. I just purchased my first home this past August and I spend my free time with small household projects and decorating.

Moved to Denver, Colorado after graduating in December of 2007. Currently working for Trimble Navigation as a Sales Operations Analyst for their North American MEP Division. I also enjoy traveling, going to baseball games and hiking in the Rockies.

After graduating from Cal Poly in June 2010 with a BS in Statistics and minors in math and psychology, I completed my Master’s Degree in Applied Statistics from UCSB in December 2011. Since April 2012, I have been working as a Biostatistician (my official title “Statistician Asst.”) for the Department of Radiology at UCLA. My role is twofold: I provide statistical support for research done at the UCLA Department of Radiology. I also manage and analyze data from various pharmacological clinical trials. I’ve been at this position for a year and a half and have found it very rewarding.

I am currently working at Facebook in the User Operations department. Our team handles user support and enforces Facebook's statement of rights and responsibilities. It feels like I'm still at a college campus, except they provide us free breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day!

Since graduating in December, I landed my dream job as a Marketing Analyst at a local software company, MINDBODY, Inc. I decided to postpone grad school for the time being because I could not resist the opportunity to stay on the Central Coast and work for such a great and growing company doing what I love. I am so thankful for the education I received at Cal Poly and the arsenal of statistical analysis skills taught by our amazing department (I use them in my job daily). In one of my current projects I am utilizing R and survival analysis (thanks, Dr. Sklar).

Right after SLO, I went directly into an M.S. program for Statistics at UCLA. Insanely intelligent professors, lots of chalk, lots of power points, lots of R, lots of work! But it was so worth it in the end. Currently, I live in SF, working as a CRM Business Analyst at Gap Inc. Sometimes I work on simple tasks like pulling sales data using SAS into an excel report, sometimes I work on super elaborate convoluted modeling analysis that would make coffee taste like water! I've been enjoying life exploring the urban jungle, working from home on Fridays, and always making time for good friends on the weekends. I love my job, and I'm loving life. Biggest takeaway I learned? Hard work has no regrets.

Right now I am in my first semester at San Diego State working on my Masters in Statistics, with a concentration in Biostatistics along will a few other Cal Poly alumni.

I'm in my 2nd year of the Applied Math and Statistics PhD program at UC Santa Cruz. I work with Abel Rodriguez on Bayesian ideal point estimation in analyzing legislative roll call data. We are currently investigating the effect of the Hastert Rule, which is an informal rule used in the House of Representative that attempts to limit the power of the minority party by preventing voting on a bill that is not supported by the majority of the majority. I have also been collaborating with Rebecca Ottesen to investigate comparisons between SAS and R, specifically recently on simulation. This work has been presented at SAS Global Forum and is an invited talk at the Western Users of SAS Software 2013 conference. As an exciting side note, I'll be spending the holidays visiting my brother in Lesotho, Africa!

I am enjoying my time at NCSU.  My classes are very interesting, I am enjoying my coursework in statistical computing and Bayesian methods the most.  I am grateful to the Cal Poly Statistics Department for the great training I received; it has proven useful in graduate school!
Right now my funding at NCSU is coming from teaching an introductory statistics course under the guidance of Dr. Roger Woodard and Dr. Herle McGowan.  It has proven to be a quite enjoyable experience.

Though I have enjoyed it out here, changes in my family situation will be bringing me back to the central coast in May, after finishing my masters degree at NCSU.  I am applying to UCSB and UCSC to continue with my graduate education in statistics.

I graduated from the class of 2008, hard to believe 5 years have already flown by!  I am currently working as a Senior Project/Program Manager at Yahoo in Burbank, CA.  I work on the Network Quality team which ensures that ads and publisher sites across all platforms are safe and relevant.  Although I don’t use Statistics in my job, I am pursuing a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certification (already got the Green Belt), because I work a lot on process improvement.  Besides working, I am busy planning my wedding for April 2014 in Santa Clarita, CA.  I met my fiancé 2 years ago on an online dating site (OkCupid).  It’s definitely a fun time in my life right now!

I am working at Elevation Burger Head Office in Arlington Virginia, outside of Washington DC. Elevation Burger is the nation's first 100% organic grass-fed hamburger restaurant in the US. We have forty two stores open world-wide. I work in the supply chain as an analyst, which encompasses everything from negotiations on product pricing, quality assurance, and analysis on usage and pricing for every product we use. I have not won my Olympic metal yet. No Children, no wife. Dressing nicer. I have gotten to do extensive travel. I've been to 10 countries outside of the US on trips related to my job, which is exciting. I don't really use my statistics knowledge anymore besides knowing how to tell if someone is BSing me with numbers. Currently involved in a local church out here and I'm missing CA weather.

I'm now back in San Francisco working at Mercer as a consulting actuary. Prior to that I spent a few years in Honolulu where I advanced both my actuarial skills and my mai tai recipe. I'm still making progress on both - I've obtained my Associate of the Society of Actuaries (A.S.A.) and Enrolled Actuary (E.A.) designations, as well as my graduation certificate from the San Francisco School of Bartending.

I am currently an actuarial assistant on the data analytics team at Farmers Insurance in LA. The emphasis at this time of the data analytics team is data quality i.e. making sure the data coming through to perform actuarial analysis are clean according to actuarial standards. In order to check the data, I use cron, a unix program scheduler, to automatically run programs that creates a report on each daily file coming through the financial system. In addition to data quality, I reprogram old and slow processes with SAS and assist with some predictive modeling. Occasionally, I test new SAS releases for Farmers and assist with programming issues  other employees have e.g. efficiency issues, syntax issues, general SAS questions etc. Understanding the details of the actuarial data will benefit my career as I rotate to other teams such as reserving and pricing-the actuarial department at Farmers has a rotation program to give actuaries broader knowledge of the department and the company itself. The SAS and analytic skills the Cal Poly statistics department taught me are already paying off and I have only been with Farmers for four months.

I am in the final stages of finishing my PhD. My dissertation is titled “Batch Sequencing Methods for Computer Experiments” and currently the only thing that remains before the defense is to edit my report. Right now, I am in Seattle finishing up my thesis, and looking for jobs on the West Coast.

I started working at Amgen after graduation and I am still with the company. I have changed positions and am now a Feasibility Manager working with study teams to determine the optimal implementation for our clinical trials. Earlier this year I got married. I am also training for my first half marathon next year.

I am a math teacher at Burbank High School and blessed to be teaching AP Statistics. I am proud to have sent one of my graduates to Cal Poly SLO to major in Statistics! My wife, Shelley, and I have a five month old baby named Cayman and have found the pregnancy/baby process to be an interesting source of data.

After graduating from Cal Poly in 2009, I immediately started working for Amgen.  During the four and a half years that I have been working at Amgen, I have taken a variety of positions in different groups including IS (Information Systems) support in the randomization of clinical trials, system owner for SAS, and FDA compliance response.  Currently, my title is a Sr. Associate Business Systems Analyst, and I work in the IS Strategy, Architecture, and Services group.  Although at work I wear many hats, the main focus for the group is to make decisions using data  to drive efficiency and cost effectiveness in a competitive industry.  In conjuncture with work, I am getting my masters in statistics at Texas A&M through their distance learning program.  I am halfway through the program and it has worked out well for me so far!  Working fulltime and going to school leaves little free time, but in the couple months I get off from school a year, I like to take time off from work and travel.

The Noyce scholarship brought me to teach in the Central Valley. I'm currently teaching Precalculus and AP Statistics at Pacheco High School, in Los Banos. My husband Drew, a Cal Poly grad, and I are living in Merced because he works at the UC, and our daughter Olivia Lynn was born on Halloween of this year.

I began my first post-college job a short two weeks after graduating from Cal Poly, as a Risk Analyst for a disease management/wellness company called SHPS. After working there for a couple of years and passing a couple of actuarial exams, I was then recruited to Milliman, Inc. in San Francisco, CA, which is one of the big 4 actuarial consulting firms. Starting as an Actuarial Analyst, I quickly learned about the insurance industry and all of the types of products and programs available to our clients. Since then, I have earned the CEBS (Certified Employee Benefits Specialist) designation, I am one exam away from ASA (Associate in the Society of Actuaries) designation , and I have been promoted to Consultant.

After Cal Poly I moved to San Francisco for a few years and worked for an investment firm, then moved back to LA and got my masters in stat from UCLA. For the past three and a half years I have worked at Marketshare, a marketing analytics company located in Los Angeles.  My title at Marketshare is Sr. Scientist - Simulation and Optimization, I develop marketing mix models and then optimize marketing budgets for Fortune 50 companies. In October 2012 I moved to Louisville, KY with my then future wife (we got married just this last June 2013).  She is attending medical school here and I still work for Marketshare from my home office now.

I graduated from UC Riverside with my Ph.D. in Social/Personality Psychology in 2009. After graduating, I worked for an educational research company for a couple of years. A desk job was not the place for me, so I decided to open myself up to teaching full-time in states other than California. I am currently at Cochise College (Arizona) teaching almost every Psychology Course we offer (6 to 7 per semester), including Statistics and Research Methods. I also advise two clubs, The Psychology Club and Lessons of the Holocaust Club. In Spring 2013, I was awarded with the Student Government Association’s Faculty Advisor of the Year award and this summer, I was super excited to be part of the AP grading in Kansas City! This semester, I am starting a Psi-Beta chapter on campus (a Psychology Honors organization for community colleges) and developing an online statistics course. In my free time, I work and bock (spring loaded stilting).

I have been working for at Safeway Corporate since February 2011 as a Customer Data Analyst. I analyzing customer data for the Loyalty Marketing/Just 4 You Department. My focus is our Health and Wellness Programs, and macro-level customer trends. I am thankful for a challenging curriculum of the Cal Poly Statistics department that helped me learn to problem solve on the fly and develop creative solutions to analyze data. In my spare time I play on an intramural volleyball team, a trivia team, and have completed two half marathons this year. I am still actively involved in Sigma Kappa Sorority at Cal Poly as an National Advisor for Recruitment and Philanthropic Services - the best part about this work, beyond mentoring amazing young women, is that I get to visit beautiful SLO multiple times a year.  I also enjoy spending time with my friends and family, most of all, chasing my two year old twin nieces around.

I’m an assistant professor at Duke University in the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics. I’ve been in my current position for four years and was an intern here for two years previous. I work mainly on collaborations on cardiovascular clinical trials and registries. My experience is with methods for causal inference in observational data and I work exclusively on secondary research, using data sets that were created to answer a different question or to answer many general questions. I love my job here and that has made it less likely that I will ever move back to California, although I always wished to. In fact, my parents just sold their house in California and moved to Raleigh in order to be close to grandchildren. I have a four year old son, Greyson, and my brother and his family also live in Raleigh now. North Carolina can’t compete with SLO for natural beauty, but there are tons of fun things to do here in the city. We live near downtown and are always attending concerts, shows and festival. We live in a 1920’s bungalow and working on the house and garden is our hobby. My goal is to have a magazine-worthy garden in 10 years. If I can learn not to kill plants it will all work out!

From 2009-2010 I was a substitute math and stat teacher at my old high school. In 2010 I attended Cal State East Bay and earned M.S. in Biostatistics in 2012. In 2013 I became a private contractor specializing in data management and analysis. My main client, Elevation Burger, offices in Virginia so I decided to move there. In February I got married in Monterey, CA and moved my wife to Virginia soon after. My tasks are varied from day to day. One of my bigger projects involved identifying "key performance indicators" (KPI's: variables significantly correlated to sales) and streamlining all data sources (point of sales, mystery shop, social media, etc.) to one central business intelligence platform where those KPI's are being updated in real time. The statistical software I use includes R, WinBUGS, GGobi. Other projects include survey design and analysis, hypothesis testing, and eating a lot of organic burgers :)

Since I graduated I moved up to San Francisco where I work as an Analytic Scientist for Fair Isaac Corporation (FICO). FICO provides analytics and decision management services to financial institutions. Most people know FICO by the FICO® Credit Score, which is generally recognized as the standard measure of U.S. consumer credit risk. Maintaining/redeveloping this FICO® score is a major part of what my team does. Put more generally, I work on building statistical models that explain and predict consumer credit behavior. Living in SF is an absolute blast, I definitely recommend it to future graduates who are looking for a fun area to work after school. But I do miss the weather in SLO.

I am a Senior Analyst at DIRECTV, responsible for building and maintaining premium upgrade models and churn prediction models.  After completing my Masters in Statistics at UCLA one year after graduating from Cal Poly, I worked at a market research firm before starting at DIRECTV.  Recently, I completed my first half-marathon and am looking forward to beating my time on my next next race.

Things are pretty hunky-dory in Andyland. I'm back living in my hometown of San Jose and currently working as a Research Associate on the Insights team at LinkedIn. I also have the privilege of working with fellow Cal Poly Statistics alum Ryan Milhous. My daily activities range from programming and survey design, to sampling & fieldwork, as well as reporting and analysis. Every day I put to good use all the valuable knowledge gained from classes like Professor Smith's Survey Sampling & Methodology class!