Liya Ding is a Data Scientist for the DSI and the Center for Living Systems under Margaret Gardel. She received an M.S. degree from the Department of Electronic and Information Engineering at Zhejiang University in 2003 and a Ph.D. degree from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Ohio State University in 2009. Subsequently, she did postdoctoral training at the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Ohio State University, the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School, and the Department of Cell Biology at the UT Southwestern Medical Center.

Her professional trajectory includes roles as a Scientist at the Allen Institute for Cell Science, and later as an Associate Professor at the Institute for Brain and Intelligence at Southeast University.

Her interests and fields of research are in computer vision, data science, machine learning, and computational cell biology, with a focus on microscopy image processing and quantitative data analysis.

Launa is a software engineer II responsible for executing Data Clinic projects with student teams in conjunction with the 11th Hour Project, as well as internal projects for the DSI. She received her bachelor’s degree in the humanities at Princeton University and her master’s degree in Computational Analysis and Public Policy at the University of Chicago. Prior to joining the University, she worked as an adult education instructor and then as a software consultant at a Microsoft partner company.

Todd is a data scientist for the Data Science Institute. He works on projects associated with the 11th Hour Project and mentors student teams as part of the Data Science Clinic. Todd joined the DSI after completing an MS in Computer Science at the University of Chicago with a focus on data analytics. Todd is interested in both applying data science to scientific and social problems as well as theoretical machine learning. He also owns South Loop Strength & Conditioning, a gym in downtown Chicago, and holds a BA from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

Chris Redmond is an Open Source Software Engineer at the Data Science Institute and the AI & Science Initiative. He provides engineering support for research efforts in the natural sciences and helps social impact organizations expand their data science capabilities. Chris graduated from Haverford College with a BS in Mathematics and worked as an engineer at JPMorgan Chase before joining the institute.

Dr. Ross is an experienced data science executive and academic leader who specializes in leveraging business, engineering, and data to optimize decision-making. His various roles have ranged from architecting and designing production ML/AI systems, to hiring, growing, and leading engineering and data science teams.

Previously, Dr. Ross led the data science and backend engineering efforts at The Meta, an esports training platform used by millions of competitive gamers. Before joining The Meta, Dr. Ross was a Professor of Data Science at the University of San Francisco, where his research focused on how to effectively use data and data science techniques to answer business questions. During this time, he was also the Assistant Director of the University of San Francisco’s Data Institute, where he led and developed academic-industry partnerships to create a world-class masters of data science program. Under his leadership, the Data Institute placed hundreds of students into top data science positions in both the private and public sectors, with a job placement rate of over 90% within 3 months of graduation. As a consultant, he spearheaded data efforts at leading tech companies in the video and online game industry, from early-stage startups to multinational companies.

Dr. Ross received his PhD from UCLA, his Masters from UC Davis, and his Bachelor of Science from UC Berkeley. He has published papers in a variety of journals as well as given talks in both academic and industry settings.

Trevor is a Software Engineer II at the DSI. He helps social impact organizations to enhance their operations, research, and communication by utilizing software engineering and data science tools. His work focuses on agriculture, human rights, energy, and marine technology. Trevor also mentors student teams in the Data Science Clinic. Before DSI, Trevor worked as a research assistant at Argonne National Laboratory. Trevor has a BS in Computer Science from MIT.