Falling in Love with Data

Alexandra Simonoff joined the Master of Science in Data Science program in Fall 2015. Prior to this, Alex received her Bachelors degree from NYU in Mathematics, graduating with a University Honors Scholar Award. After graduating in 2013 she began working at AIG, first in Investment Risk Management for a year and currently as a Data Scientist since August 2014.

She is interested in data mining, predictive modeling and sports analytics, specially their application in professional hockey.I was raised on Long Island, New York, and Ive lived in the NYC metropolitan area my entire life. My mother worked in banking before my brother and I were born, and my father is a statistician and professor, so I was raised to love numbers and data.

I majored in Mathematics and minored in Computer Programming and Web Applications at NYU, graduating with my degree in May 2013. After interning at AIG, a property casualty insurance company, the summer before graduating, I took a full time offer to work in their Investment Risk Management group (specifically working in Market Risk Analytics) beginning July 2013.After speaking with peers in AIGs Science department and taking statistics and data mining courses in school, I found myself enamored with data science and using data to uncover business trends.

After a year in risk management I transferred internally to AIGs Science department to work as a data scientist. I found I really enjoyed using data to help AIG and its various business units succeed. People welcomed innovation and change, and being behind several transformational efforts made me feel like I was changing peoples lives (at least their work life, and thats a pretty significant thing).

In order to become better at my job and learn more about the world of data science, as well as stay on top of the latest developments, I decided to pursue a Masters in Data Science. Im very interested in developing predictive models, especially by ways of machine learning. Another field I am fascinated with is sports analytics; I competed on NYUs Varsity Track and Field team through college and after graduating began playing ice hockey.

My (albeit short) experience at the NYUs Center for Data Science has been everything I hoped it would; I have met brilliant people from all over the world with dozens of different backgrounds, all who share the same passion of statistics and data. The professors I got a chance to learn from are leaders in their industries and give us tools to help us succeed wherever we ultimately take our knowledge. I am happy to work every day alongside passionate classmates with very diverse backgrounds!

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