Datacast’s 31st Episode is my conversation with Colleen Farrelly — a data scientist whose experience spans biotech, healthcare, pharma, marketing, finance, operations, edtech, manufacturing, and disaster logistics. Listen to learn about her background in medicine and social science, her expertise in topological analysis and quantum computing, her experience with epidemic modeling, her prolific writing on Quora, her involvement with the data community in the greater Miami area, and much more.
Colleen M. Farrelly is a data scientist whose experience spans biotech, healthcare, pharma, marketing, finance, operations, edtech, manufacturing, and disaster logistics. Her research focuses mostly on the intersection of topology/geometry, machine learning, statistics, and quantum computing. She’s passionate about poetry, surfing, Gators football, and socioeconomics.
Show Notes
(1:58) Colleen gave a brief overview of her professional background and her path to data science.
(3:27) Colleen explained how her background in medicine and social science contributes to her success as a data scientist working in different domains.
(5:20) Colleen shares her thoughts on how data science varies by sector.
(7:02) Referring to her consulting company Staticlysm LLC, Colleen discussed a current medical technology project that she is working on.
(8:19) Colleen shared applications of quantum machine learning in the wild, referring to her work at Quantopo — where she is the co-founder and chief mathematician.
(12:33) Colleen discussed a new project leveraging quantum and quantum-inspired algorithms for nuclear reactor optimization at Quantopo.
(15:17) Colleen gave advice for data scientists who want to start a business and get into consulting.
(16:58) Colleen discussed topological data analysis in machine learning.
(23:02) Colleen discussed epidemic modeling and engaging foreign aid organizations, given her experience with the Ebola outbreak.
(26:01) Colleen discussed the different approaches to model the spread of diseases in epidemics, which follow a differential equation framework.
(30:22) Colleen explained why buy-in and corporation from those in power are critical to combat epidemics.
(32:20) Colleen explained the difference between the current Coronavirus pandemic and the previous Ebola epidemic (note that this conversation is recorded in mid-March 2020, so information about COVID19 may have dated).
(37:06) Colleen shared resources to get up-skilled in data science.
(39:40) Colleen talked about the benefits of writing on Quora, where she has written more than 13,000 answers.
(41:31) Colleen shared the traits of an excellent technical communicator and/or data translator.
(43:26) Colleen shared her process of writing a technical book that focuses on the use-cases of topology, geometry, and graph theory in machine learning and data science.
(50:32) Colleen talked about the growth of the data science community in Miami.
(54:30) Colleen discussed her involvement in data science within the African sectors.
(57:55) Colleen shared her thoughts on how the data science field will evolve in the next few years: access to big data platforms, the dominance of Python, and the rise of quantum computing.
(01:01:12) Closing segment.
Her Contact Info
Her Recommended Resources
Xanadu (Quantum Computing Hardware)
D-Wave Systems (Quantum Computing Hardware)
Ayasdi (Topological Data Analysis-Focused Startup)
Random Forests paper by Leo Breiman
Andrew Ng (Founder of Coursera, DeepLearning.AI, and Landing.AI)