Chicago Data Night: Arjun Ravi Kannan (Discover Financial Services)

Please join us for our monthly Chicago Data Night, cohosted by Drive Capital, ChiData and the DSI. Practitioners, academics, and aficionados within the Chicago area are all invited to be part of a community at the intersection of industry and academia, brought together by a mutual interest in data. Each month, guest speakers will cover a specific data-related topic.

Hors d’oeuvres and drinks will be provided. Admission is free, and we strongly encourage an RSVP to attend. 

Meeting Location
Drive Capital, Fulton East Building
215 N Peoria St
Chicago, IL 60607

AGENDA
5:30pm: Networking Reception
6:00pm: Welcome Remarks
6:05pm: Guest Speaker
6:50pm: Q&A
7:00pm: Networking Reception
7:30pm: Event Concludes

Talk focus: The use of responsible AI in a regulated industry such as financial services with a focus on how Arjun and his team’s research has been utilized by Discover in consumer lending.

Bio: Arjun Ravi Kannan, Director, Data Science Research, Discover Financial Services. Arjun leads the data science/machine learning (ML) research function at Discover Financial Services. His team focuses on fundamental research in areas such as ML Explainability and Bias/Fair Lending research and has multiple papers and patents in these areas. His team also develops and explores the use of advanced ML algorithms such as Graphs, Deep Learning, Agentic Systems, Reinforcement Learning and Unsupervised Learning methods in financial services applications. He has been with Discover for more than 10 years in progressive roles in both risk management and behavioral modeling. He holds a PhD (ABD) in Finance from the Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern University), an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore and B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.