EXPERIENCE
Apple | Cupertino, CA (Current)
- Staff Data Scientist (Oct 2023 - Present)
- Measure, describe, and forecast baseline demand for, and the cost of, Apple-owned infrastructure for the Cloud Infrastructure Business Operations (CIBO) organization.
- Collaborate with business analysts and CIBO leadership to surface infrastructure costs to engineering teams and properly capture the anticipated impact of new features and services.
- Senior Data Science Manager (Oct 2021 - Sep 2023)
- Led a talented team of 4 data scientists and 5 contractors tasked with measuring and describing demand for, and cost of, Apple cloud infrastructure.
- Planned and managed team projects; protected and advocated for my direct reports; mentored and developed more junior data scientists; recruited, interviewed, and hired new talent.
- Proposed data strategies and the adoption of new (and sometimes old) technologies; built and curated downstream data products; collected, synthesized, and communicated team results to leadership.
- Operated as a technical lead—wrote internal R packages, reviewed code and advised folks through tricky statistics, economics, forecasting, and data problems.
- Evangelize better documentation, reproducibility, being language agnostic (bash, python, R—whatever gets the job done), and building community (e.g. hosting an internal Apple R Users meetup group).
- Data Science Manager (Oct 2020 - Sept 2021)
- Managed a small team of data scientists that partnered with engineering, services, and finance teams to analyze and model demand for, and the cost of, Apple-owned infrastructure.
- Senior Data Scientist (Oct 2018 - Sept 2020)
- Modeled blob & fast storage growth across Apple-owned data centers for the Finance and Services orgs.
- Developed and deployed forecasts, Shiny dashboards, and dynamic reports into production using our internal CI/CD tools and data science platform.
- Built 10+ internal (“innersource”) R packages that simplified pulling data from internal APIs, automating tedious workflows, and quickly generating fancy dynamic reports and presentations.
- Helped grow the team from a single data scientist (me) to 7 by taking an active role in recruiting at conferences and on social media.
- Data Scientist (Nov 2017 - Sept 2018)
- Modeled global demand for iCloud services (Photos, Backup, Drive) and its potential impact on Apple’s infrastructure for the Finance organization.
Transloc | Durham, NC (2016)
- Data Scientist (Sept 2016 - Dec 2016)
- Continued working part-time, refining the multitudes of metrics available to the product team into understandable, actionable information exclusively in R.
- Data Science Intern (May 2016 - Aug 2016)
- Developed products and packages that simplify working with and understanding transit data. Also learned/experimented with implementing the “agile” development philosophy but for data science.
Duke University | Durham, NC (2015 - 2017)
- Research Assistant, Durham Children’s Data Center (Jan 2017 – May 2017)
- Analyzed data from Durham County Social Services for DCDC for Dr. Ken Dodge, Dr. Beth Gifford, and Dr. Anna Gassman-Pines.
- Research Assistant, Duke-UNC BECR Center (Jan 2015 – May 2016)
- Investigated food purchasing behavior, food-related health outcomes, and food assistance policy (SNAP/WIC). The aim was to uncover trends that can help BECR design behavioral nudges to improve food choices. Also helped write papers/proposals and providing analytical results (graphics, tables, etc).
- Teaching Assistant, Sanford School of Public Policy (Spring 2015)
- Co-taught PubPol 590: Applied Big Data Science Energy Data Analytics and Policy with Dr. Matthew Harding. Students learned introductory theory about causal inference and how to do data analysis with large data sets using Python. I designed all the homework assignments, projects, and exams. The goal was for students to finish the class with the capacity to do basic consulting for energy companies.
EDUCATION
- Ph.D. Public Policy & Economics – Aug 2019
Duke University, Sanford School of Public Policy (Durham, NC)
- M.A. Economics – Feb 2013
Georgetown University (Washington, DC)
- M.S. Applied Statistics – May 2011
California State University at Long Beach (Long Beach, CA)
- B.S. Applied & Computational Mathematics – Aug 2006
University of California at Irvine (Irvine, CA) Orange Coast Community College (Costa Mesa, CA)
PROGRAMMING
- R – Expert. 10+ years of experience. Preferred language. Love package development and data.table.
- SQL – Expert. 8+ years. Avid reader of PostgreSQL and HiveQL docs.
- bash – Expert user, proficient developer. 8+ years. Primarily for processing and exploration of raw text files.
- Python – Comfortable. 7+ years. Mostly for ELT. Taught graduate econometrics & causal inference in Python.
- Others – git, dbt, docker. Dabbled with Julia, Stan, and Scala. Amateur data engineer.
PACKAGES
- gtfsr – for mapping and validation GTFS data.
DISSERTATION
- “Doubled SNAP Dollars and Nudges: An Analysis of Two Pilot Programs Aimed at Increasing the Purchase of Healthy Foods”
- My dissertation is an analysis of two different pilot programs which aimed to increase the purchase of healthy foods, specifically produce. The first pilot program was a financial incentive known as “Double Up Food Bucks”. The program targeted SNAP participants, encouraging them to purchase more fresh produce by effectively doubling purchasing power. The second pilot program was a set of three behavioral nudges designed to increase the purchase of bananas in a convenience store environment.
AWARDS AND HONORS
- Merit Based Fellowship (Economics), Georgetown University (2011 – 2015)
- 2010 STIPDG Outstanding Intern Award, US Department of Transportation (Summer 2010)
- Fletcher Jones Fellowship, University of California at Irvine (Awarded but chose not to pursue Ph.D.) (Fall 2006)
- Dean’s Honor List, University of California at Irvine (Winter 2005 – Spring 2006)
- Early Transfer (Academic Excellence), Orange Coast College to UCI (Winter 2005)
- President’s List for Academic Excellence, Orange Coast College (Fall 2003 – Fall 2004)
- Community College Scholarship Recipient, Hispanic Education Endowment Fund (HEEF) (Fall 2004)
FUN FACTS
- Dual citizen of Chile and the US
- Native Spanish-speaker.
- Avid Ultimate Frisbee player.
- Former AmeriCorps NCCC Team Leader.
- Cooks a mean kimchi & onion frittata.