My name is Nick Ross and I’m an experienced data science professor and executive. Currently I’m an instructional professor and Director of the Data Science Clinic at the University of Chicago’s Data Science Institute. I also advise and invest in startups, personally as well as through the Polsky Center’s Transform Data Science and AI Accelerator. Finally, I sit on the advisory board of Michigan State University’s Analytics Program.

Before Chicago, I was Director of Backend Engineering and Data Science at The Meta (not Facebook). I spend most of my time working with boring technologies (node, python, k8s, docker and redis for example). I design cost-effective, scalable, cloud-based backend and data systems (ML/AI) as well as assemble the teams that build them. This includes all the fun stuff keeping the systems up at night.

On the research side I study how companies leverage data to make decisions. Currently I’m working on two projects: a tome on A/B testing and a book on Data Management using Pandas and SQL.

Formerly I was a professor at the University of San Francisco though I spent most of my time housed within their Data Institute and teaching in the Masters of Data Science Program (MSDS). Many commonly answered questions about USF’s MSDS Program can be found on my old Quora page, though some of this may be out of date.

At USF I was also Assistant Director of Partnerships at the Data Institute. In this role I established industry-academic partnerships with dozens of companies. Finally I was also the Director of the Practicum Program, sourcing over 80 data science internships per year. You can see me talking about it here.

Before USF, I spent a number of years in the video game industry, primarily at two companies: TinyCo, which was purchased by JamCity in 2016 and Sega, though I also consulted for a number of other start-ups. After completing my undergraduate degree, I worked for a number of years at Bates White, an economic consulting firm located in DC and San Diego.

You can find more details in my resume.

Education

I’m a proud product of the UC system: Undergraduate Math at UC Berkeley (2002), Masters in Economics from UC Davis (2007) and a PhD from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management (2012).