Datacast
134 episodes - English - Latest episode: 2 months ago - ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsDatacast follows the narrative journey of founders, operators, and investors in the data and AI infrastructure space to unpack the careers that they have built. James Le hosts the show.
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Episodes
Episode 34: Deep Learning Generalization, Representation, and Abstraction with Ari Morcos
June 14, 2020 14:00 - 1 hour - 82.4 MBShow Notes (2:32) Ari discussed his undergraduate studying Physiology and Neuroscience at UC San Diego, while doing neuroscience research on adult neurogenesis at the Gage Lab. (4:39) Ari discussed his decision to pursue a Ph.D. in Neurobiology at Harvard after college and extracted the importance of communication in research, thanks to his advisor Chris Harvey. (7:16) Ari explained his Ph.D. thesis titled “Population dynamics in parietal cortex during evidence accumulation for decision-m...
Episode 33: Domain Randomization in Robotics with Josh Tobin
June 03, 2020 14:30 - 53 minutes - 45.7 MBShow Notes: (2:02) Josh studied Mathematics at Columbia University during his undergraduate and explained why he was not set out for a career as a mathematician. (3:55) Josh then worked for two years as a Management Consultant at McKinsey. (6:05) Josh explained his decision to go back to graduate school and pursue a Ph.D. in Mathematics at UC Berkeley. (7:23) Josh shared the anecdote of taking a robotics class with professor Pieter Abbeel and switching to a Ph.D. in the Computer Science ...
Episode 32: Economics, Data For Good and AI Research with Sara Hooker
May 21, 2020 20:00 - 1 hour - 84.4 MBShow Notes: (2:20) Sara shared her childhood growing up in Africa. (4:05) Sara talked about her undergraduate experience at Carleton College studying Economics and International Relations. (9:07) Sara discussed her first job working as an Economics Analyst at Compass Lexecon in the Bay Area. (12:20) Sara then joined Udemy as a data analyst, then transitioned to the engineering team to work on spam detection and recommendation algorithms. (14:58) Sara dig deep into the “hustling period” ...
Episode 31: From Quantum Computing to Epidemic Modeling with Colleen Farrelly
April 18, 2020 20:57 - 1 hour - 51.8 MBShow Notes: (1:58) Colleen gave a brief overview of her professional background and her path to data science. (3:27) Colleen explained how her background in medicine and social science contributes to her success as a data scientist working in different domains. (5:20) Colleen share her thoughts on how data science varies by sector. (7:02) Referring to her consulting company Staticlysm LLC, Colleen discussed a current medical technology project that she is working on. (8:19) Colleen shar...
Episode 30: Data Science Evangelism with Parul Pandey
March 27, 2020 00:44 - 1 hour - 65 MBShow Notes: (2:12) Parul talked about her educational background, studying Electrical Engineering at the National Institute of Technology, Hamirpur. (3:18) Parul worked as a Business Analyst at Tata Power India for 7 years. (4:29) Parul talked about her initial interests in writing about data science and machine learning on Medium. (6:30) Parul discussed her first blog series “A Guide to Machine Learning in R for Beginners” - which covers the Fundamentals of ML, Intro to R, Distributions...
Episode 29: From Bioinformatics to Natural Language Processing with Leonard Apeltsin
March 13, 2020 15:30 - 1 hour - 67 MBShow Notes: (2:18) Leonard discussed his undergraduate experience at Carnegie Mellon - where he studied Biology and Computer Science. (5:10) Leonard decided to pursue a Ph.D. in Bioinformatics at the University of California - San Francisco. (6:27) Leonard described his Ph.D. research that focused on finding hidden patterns in genetically-linked diseases. (9:42) Leonard went deep into clustering algorithms (Markov Clustering and Louvain) and their applications such as protein and news ar...
Episode 28: Excelling in Data Analytics with Vincent Tatan
March 01, 2020 00:47 - 58 minutes - 53.3 MBShow Notes: (2:25) Vincent talked about his educational background, in which he studied Information Systems at the Singapore Management University. (4:20) Vincent talked about the capstone project on Data Analytics Practicuum that he completed for his degree. (5:47) Vincent went over his Software Development and Business Intelligence internship experience with VISA. (9:30) Vincent landed a Data Science internship at Lazada Group, an international e-commerce company based in Singapore. ...
Episode 27: Feature Engineering with Ben Fowler
January 24, 2020 00:50 - 1 hour - 44.7 MBShow Notes: (2:17) Ben talked about his past career working in the golf industry - working at the National Golf Foundation and the PGA of America. (4:12) Ben discussed about his first exposure to machine learning and data science. (5:06) Ben talked about his motivation for pursuing an online Master’s degree in Data Science at Southern Methodist University. (6:02) Ben emphasized the importance of a Data Mining course that he took. (8:12) Ben discussed his job as a Senior Data Scientist a...
Episode 26: From Cognitive Neuroscience To Reinforcement Learning with Arthur Juliani
January 08, 2020 01:56 - 50 minutes - 40 MBShow Notes: (2:00) Arthur talked about his undergraduate studying Psychology at North Carolina State University. (3:28) Arthur mentioned his time working as a research assistant at the LACElab in NCSU that does human factor and cognition research. (5:08) Arthur discussed his decision to pursue a graduate degree in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oregon right after college. (6:35) Arthur went over his Master's thesis (Navigation performance in virtual environments varies with ...
Episode 25: Algorithmic Trading with Alexandr Honchar
December 22, 2019 21:06 - 56 minutes - 44 MBShow Notes: (2:27) Alex talked about his undergraduate experience studying Applied Mathematics at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute. (3:15) Alex quickly went over his time working remotely as a Machine Learning Engineer for a US-company called Inma AI during university. (4:24) Alex mentioned his decision to pursue a Master’s degree in Mathematics at the University of Verona. (6:21) Alex went over the Math graduate classes that he took for his degree, including differential geometry and opti...
Episode 24: From Actuarial Science to Machine Learning with Mael Fabien
December 09, 2019 23:16 - 1 hour - 62.2 MBShow Notes: (2:08) Mael recalled his experience getting a Bachelor of Science Degree in Economics from HEC Lausanne in Switzerland. (4:47) Mael discussed his experience co-founding Wanago, which is the world’s first van acquisition and conversion crowdfunding platform. (9:48) Mael talked about his decision to pursue a Master’s degree in Actuarial Science, also at HEC Lausanne. (11:51) Mael talked about his teaching assistantships experience for courses in Corporate and Public Finance. (...
Episode 23: Machine Learning for Finance with Jannes Klaas
December 03, 2019 15:27 - 42 minutes - 39.2 MBShow Notes: (1:57) Jannes discussed his undergraduate experience studying International Business Administration at Rotterdam School of Management - Erasmus University (one of Europe’s top 10 research-based business schools). (3:06) Jannes talked about his work on the IHS Global Green City Index, a set of measurements that can give majors actionable insight in where cities stand in sustainability. (4:05) Jannes talked about his involvement with the Turing Society in Rotterdam, where he dev...
Episode 22: Leading Self-Driving Cars Projects with Jan Zawadzki
November 20, 2019 07:17 - 1 hour - 58.5 MBShow Notes: (2:15) Jan discussed his undergraduate experience studying Business Administration and Economics from Goshen College in Indiana. (3:48) Jan went over his first job out of college: working as a Strategy and Enterprise Intelligence consultant at the EY office in Berlin, a Big 4 consulting firm. (6:09) Jan talked about his decision to pursue a part-time Master’s degree in Computer Science at the Trier University of Applied Sciences while working at EY. (7:21) Jan covered the mos...
Episode 21: How To Be A Data Science Writer with Admond Lee
October 30, 2019 14:42 - 1 hour - 61.4 MBShow Notes: (2:17) Admond described his undergraduate experience studying Applied Physics from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. (3:02) Admond talked about the importance of learning multivariate calculus and linear algebra in college. (3:38) Admond shared his research internship experience at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in Geneva after his junior year. (4:54) Admond went over his part-time data analytics internship at SMRT Corporation while still a...
Episode 20: Managing Data Scientists with Sunanda Parthasarathy
September 26, 2019 02:06 - 47 minutes - 39.9 MBShow Notes: (02:05) Sunanda discussed her Master’s degree in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. (03:05) Sunanda talked about her decision to go to the US to pursue a Ph.D. in Condensed Matter and Materials Physics at Purdue University. (04:22) Sunanda went in-depth into her Ph.D. thesis that focused on spin transport. (06:51) Sunanda accepted a Materials Science Postdoc Fellowship at Princeton University and worked there for 3 years on quantum insulators. (10:05) S...
Episode 19: Data Science in South Africa with Tristan Bergh
August 13, 2019 21:30 - 1 hour - 56.6 MBShow Notes: (2:35) Tristan talked about his undergraduate experience studying Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. (4:10) Tristan discussed his Technical Director experience at a company called Y2K Tec, where he managed developers working on tools using Visual C++, SQL Server, and Windows Server. (5:11) Tristan talked about his 3 years working as a solutions and enterprise application architect at IKT CC. (6:45) Tristan went over his 2-year exper...
Episode 18: NLP at Crisis Text Line with Ankit Gupta
July 25, 2019 00:00 - 50 minutes - 41.9 MBShow Notes: (2:04) Ankit discussed his college experience at the Amity School of Engineering and Tech in which he studied Computer Science and Engineering. (3:34) Ankit talked about his first role out of school as a Senior Solution Integrator role at Ericsson. (5:20) Ankit talked about a unique aspect of his role at Ericsson, which was global collaboration and communication with clients all over the world, including the US, UK, and Nigeria. (7:50) Ankit went over his 2 years at Core Serv...
Episode 17: Computer Vision Research with Genevieve Patterson
July 16, 2019 21:30 - 53 minutes - 40.8 MBShow Notes: (2:09) Genevieve discussed her undergraduate experience studying Electrical Engineering and Mathematics at the University of Arizona. (3:18) Genevieve talked about her Master’s work in Electrical Machines from the University of Tokyo. (6:59) Genevieve went in-depth about her research work on transverse-flux motor design during her Master’s, in which she won the Outstanding Paper award at ICEMS 2009. (11:39) Genevieve talked about her motivation to pursue a Ph.D. degree in Com...
Episode 16: Bayesian Probabilistic Programming with Peadar Coyle
July 06, 2019 12:00 - 44 minutes - 36.1 MBShow Notes: (2:02) Peadar discussed his undergraduate experience studying Physics and Philosophy at the University of Bristol. (3:05) Peadar then pursued a Master’s degree in Mathematics from the University of Luxembourg, where he did a thesis on machine learning for time series forecasting. (4:16) Peadar commented on his varied work experience with various companies, particularly on data maturity and the difference of established companies and startups. (7:11) Peadar talked about his la...
Episode 15: Thoughts on Data Science from the perspective of a behavioral scientist with Nick Gaylord
June 27, 2019 17:00 - 1 hour - 56.9 MBShow Notes: (2:06) Nick talked about earning his Ph.D. degree in Psycho-Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin. (3:58) Nick discussed his Ph.D. dissertation, in which he looked at the role of domain-general decision making processes in human language comprehension. (8:41) Nick talked about his teaching experience in graduate school, as well as why UT-Austin is a perfect place to study linguistics. (12:29) Nick delved into his first job out of school as a Linguistic Associate ...
Episode 14: Overcoming Impostor Syndrome with Conor Dewey
June 02, 2019 01:17 - 56 minutes - 50.3 MBShow Notes: (2:04) Conor recalled his undergraduate experience studying Computational Modeling and Data Analytics at Virginia Tech. (4:07) Conor emphasized the importance of learning data structures and algorithms for interview prep. (5:57) Conor mentioned his Data Analytics internship at MasterCard after his sophomore year. (7:35) Conor talked about his involvement with the Bio-Complexity Institute at Virginia Tech as a Computational Research Intern during his junior year. (8:58) Conor...
Episode 13: Transition from Academia to Data Science with Martina Pugliese
April 30, 2019 22:30 - 1 hour - 54.6 MBShow Notes: (2:20) Martina recalled her experience getting Bachelor, Master’s, and Ph.D. degrees in Physics from Sapienza Università’ di Roma. (3:35) Martina discussed her Ph.D. thesis, in which she looked at the study of Complex Systems related to Linguistics and studied how natural language evolves in time. (6:04) Martina talked about her experience doing the S2DS bootcamp in London after finishing her Ph.D. (7:10) Martina gave her reasons to move to the Greater UK while looking for a ...
Episode 12: Data Science in Consulting with Jim Leach
March 18, 2019 12:30 - 56 minutes - 44 MBShow Notes: (2:16) Jim recalled his experience getting a Bachelor Degree in Chemistry at the University College of London. (4:01) Jim talked about the analytical skills that he got out from his Chemistry degree. (5:09) Jim gave a brief background overview of his employer KPMG, one of the big 4 consulting firms. (6:56) Jim shared the major challenges of applying scientific rigor to identify and quantify business opportunities using data. (9:42) Jim reflected on his professional growth wo...
Episode 11: Psychology and Neuroscience in Data Science with Francisco Javier Carrera Arias
March 06, 2019 13:30 - 48 minutes - 37.4 MBShow Notes: (2:10) Francisco recalled his experience getting a Bachelor of Science Degree in Psychology from Nova Southeastern University. (3:42) Francisco gave a brief overview of the field of Behavioral Neuroscience. (4:19) Francisco gave some recommendation for people who are interested in learning more about behavioral psychology and neuroscience. (5:39) Francisco discussed his research thesis looking at “The effects of video gaming with a brain-computer interface on physiological st...
Episode 10: Linguist turned Data Scientist with Matthias Raess
February 22, 2019 16:30 - 1 hour - 47.2 MBShow Notes: (2:22) Matthias recalled his experience getting a Master’s Degree in English, History, and Political Science from the University of Regensburg in Germany. (3:19) Matthias discussed his Master’s Thesis looking at the formation and transformation of 9/11-memory in American news weeklies as well as the importance of project management skills. (6:00) Matthias talked about his 2 years with the Professional Teacher Training Program working for the Bavarian Government. (7:48) Matthi...
Episode 9: Diving Into Data Engineering with Mark Sellors
February 01, 2019 17:30 - 1 hour - 63.6 MBShow Notes: (2:05) Mark revisited his brief stint during college back in the 90s. (3:38) Mark’s first job as a Business Consultant at Dixon Stores Group was a humbling experience. (5:41) Mark stressed the importance of customer empathy that lasts with him throughout his career. (6:45) Mark talked about his next long-term job as a Configuration & Support Engineer at Orange PCS, where he built solid technical skills in IT and data work. (12:51) Mark discussed his next gig working as a Pri...
Episode 8: From Underwater Communication to Data Science with Chintan Shah
January 25, 2019 17:00 - 49 minutes - 39.9 MBShow Notes: (2:07) Chintan talked about his undergraduate education in India at the Dharmsinh Desai University, studying Electronics & Communication. (2:53) Chintan recalled the most useful knowledge from his undergraduate experience. (3:42) Chintan explained his decision to pursue a Master degree in Communication and Signal Processing at Newcastle University in the UK. (5:09) Chintan discussed advanced communication systems knowledge he learned during his Master. (6:25) Chintan talked ...
Episode 7: Building Open-Source R packages with Thomas Lin Pedersen
January 11, 2019 13:30 - 58 minutes - 47.3 MBShow Notes: (2:16) Thomas talked about the study of Food Science and Technology in which he focused on microbiology. (3:15) Thomas stressed the importance of user empathy, something useful he gained from his degree. (4:39) Thomas discussed the reason to pursue a Ph.D. in Bioinformatics at the Technical University of Denmark. (6:10) Thomas talked in-depth about the tools he developed for his Ph.D. thesis, which are able to handle large-scale pangenome analyses using sequential data. (9:1...
Episode 6: Data Science in the Travel Industry with Ewan Nicolson
December 16, 2018 14:00 - 57 minutes - 52.6 MBShow Notes: (2:00) Ewan recalled his undergraduate days at the University of Edinburgh studying Physics. (2:43) Ewan talked about his first job out of school as a Seismic Acquisition Specialist at ION Geophysical. (5:28) Ewan briefly skimmed through his next job as a Senior Research Executive in Marketing Science at BBC. (7:40) Ewan gave some key insights on the intersection between marketing and data. (10:15) Ewan introduced Skyscanner and the interesting data problem that he is helpin...
Episode 5: Applied Statistics in Data Science with Christopher Peters
October 28, 2018 02:00 - 49 minutes - 44.9 MBShow Notes: (2:05) Chris recalled his Econometrics and Quantitative Economics study during his undergraduate days. (4:14) Chris talked about his research work focus on oil and gas at the Center for Energy Studies at Louisiana State University. (5:53) Chris gave some insights on how data science and econometrics can solve problems in the energy industry. (7:51) Chris talked about his decision to pursue a Masters in Applied Statistics. (9:02) Chris emphasized the importance of learning st...
Episode 4: AI in Retail with Saurabh Bhatnagar
October 08, 2018 13:46 - 44 minutes - 40.4 MBShow Notes: (3:20) Saurabh recalled his college experience. (4:25) Saurabh talked about his first role out of school as a software engineer specializing in database at CA Technologies. (8:06) Saurabh landed database consulting roles with different companies. (9:14) Saurabh gave insights on the differences between database systems now and a decade ago. (11:05) Saurabh shared his experience landing a senior data scientist job with Barnes & Noble. (13:15) Saurabh explained major challenge...
Episode 3: How to be a Social Media Data Whiz with Leni Krsova
September 16, 2018 22:58 - 53 minutes - 49.1 MBShow Notes: (3:08) Leni explains how studying Theatre Critics in college help her develop analytical thinking. (4:00) Leni briefly her first job out of college in brand management at a lifestyle brand called Life is Porno. (5:54) Leni goes over the most interesting classes she took during her Master of Arts in New Media Studies at Charles University. (7:52) Leni talks about her 1-year residency in the social media team of New Media department at Czech TV. (12:02) Leni reflects on the ca...
Episode 2: Becoming a Deep Learning Expert with Deep Narain Singh
September 08, 2018 19:30 - 58 minutes - 53.5 MBShow Notes: (1:58) Deep gives a brief background of his career. (3:42) Deep explains the discipline of civil engineering. (4:24) Deep talks about his first job out of college as a programmer analyst at Cognizant in Pune, India. (5:26) Deep then became a senior software engineer at the investment bank Citigroup in Mumbai, India. (7:30) Deep discusses his next role as a senior associate for the e-commerce company Sapient in Bangalore, India. (8:57) Deep then went to Barclays Investment B...
Episode 1: Molecular Biologist turned Data Scientist with Jonathan Leslie
August 20, 2018 17:07 - 53 minutes - 49 MBShow Notes: (2:10) Jon reflects on his academic career and explained why he pursued an advanced degree in Biology. He also went over his post-doc fellowship at Cancer Research UK. (4:45) Jon discusses the zebra-fish project he worked on during his post-doc research at King’s College London. (8:13) Jon talks about the developmental biology work he did at the embryology lab at University College London. (10:00) Jon explains why biological data are noisy. (10:58) Jon explains his motivatio...