Center for Data, Mathematical, and Computational Sciences Fair

Date/Time: Tuesday, 4/5/22, 5-7pm
Location: Ramapo College, Trustees Pavilion 1

Join us for the Data, Mathematical, and Computational Sciences Fair on April 5th, 2022! This event will feature keynote speaker Dr. Shawn Simpson, Principal Data Scientist at BlackRock AI Labs, who will share practical tips gleaned from her career as a Data Scientist in finance, media, and advertising. Following the keynote speech, attendees will have the chance to view posters showcasing Ramapo students’ research projects in Data, Mathematical, and Computational Sciences. Attendees will be able to network with Ramapo students and faculty, as well as prospective employers who may be looking to hire interns or full-time employees. Awards will be given for the best posters.

This event is open to current and prospective students, faculty, staff, and members of the public.

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This page will be updated as more information about the event is announced

Schedule

• 5:00-5:05pm Guests arrive
• 5:05pm-5:10pm Welcome remarks (President Cindy Jebb)
• 5:10-5:20pm Welcome and overview of Ramapo’s bachelor and master degree programs in Data, Mathematical, and Computational Sciences (Scott Frees and Amanda Beecher)
• 5:20-6:15pm Keynote speech: “Field notes for future data scientists: tips from a career in industry” by
  Dr. Shawn Simpson, Principal Data Scientist, BlackRock AI Labs. See additional information below.
• 6:15-7:00pm Student poster session and networking event

Keynote Speaker

Speaker: Dr. Shawn Simpson, Principal Data Scientist, BlackRock AI Labs

Title: Field notes for future data scientists: tips from a career in industry

Abstract: When training to be a data scientist there is an emphasis on data analysis and modeling
techniques — but what happens once you are out in industry? This talk will provide practical suggestions based on my career in data science, with examples drawn from applications in news and media, finance, and advertising technology. Topics will include going deep with data, understanding uncertainty, joining forces with engineers, taking a product mindset, knowing your end user, and architecting end-to-end systems.

Speaker bio: Shawn Simpson, Ph.D. is Principal Data Scientist in BlackRock AI Labs, where she leads an initiative that builds AI-powered decision tools for traders. Previously she was Senior Data Scientist at Tapad, a cross-device advertising technology firm. She built large-scale predictive models for telco applications using Scala, Spark/PySpark, Python, Hadoop MapReduce, and Google Cloud Platform technologies, and acted as lead data scientist on cross-functional product teams. Prior to that Shawn was Head of Data Science at Dow Jones. She was responsible for multivariate paywall testing on WSJ.com, predictive models for subscriptions and cancellations, company-wide data science training,
and internal consulting for newsroom, finance, and customer teams.

Before joining industry Shawn was an Assistant Professor of Statistics at Columbia University. Her research focused on analysis of recurrent events, Bayesian methods for large-scale data, and post-
marketing drug safety surveillance. She has a Ph.D. in Statistics from Columbia University and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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