Data science that ships, in whatever domain the problem lives.
I build models that make high-stakes decisions in production. At Tesla, every 4680 battery cell passes through my computer vision models as the final quality gate before it goes into a vehicle. Before that, I worked on shopper analytics in retail, credit and fraud risk in banking, and engine maintenance in aerospace.
Domains
Different industries, the same core work: turn messy, high-volume data into a decision someone can trust.
Lithium-ion battery reliability
CT-scan computer vision, defect detection, and thermal-runaway risk forecasting from fleet telemetry.
Shopper behavior analytics
3D pose data, in-store A/B testing, and layout simulation for physical retail.
Credit & fraud risk
Loan default modeling at scale, with explanations built for regulatory audits.
Aerospace maintenance
Engine health algorithms and geospatial tooling for fleet maintenance.
Featured work
Public write-ups of work I've contributed to, plus my patent and papers.
Engineering Tesla Vehicle Batteries for Safety, Durability and Longevity
How Tesla inspects every 4680 cell, using X-ray, CT scanning and AI-based defect detection, and how fleet telemetry feeds back into battery safety. This is the area my models and risk forecasting work in.
Read on tesla.com → Retail · Standard AIHeatmaps Are Failing Retailers. What's Next?
Why camera-by-camera heatmaps mislead retailers, and how 3D spatial reconstruction of real shopper paths gives a truer picture of in-store behavior.
Read on standard.ai → PatentSubject-tracking in a cashier-less store for spatial analytics
US 2024/0193497 A1. Co-inventor on using subject tracking in autonomous-checkout stores to improve item and shelf placement.
View patent →Analyzing the Shopping Journey: Computing Shelf Visits in a Physical Retail Store
Submitted to IEEE RO-MAN (34th International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication). First author.
An Interpretable Method of Learning Stochastic Game Dynamics
Models a soccer ball's movement with learned potential functions to simulate matches. Captures large score differentials better than Poisson regression. Presented at the Carnegie Mellon Sports Analytics Conference.
View slides →Experience
Selected impact. The full detail is in the resume.
Senior Data Scientist
- Built and deployed U-Net models that segment 50+ battery components from CT scans, reaching 98% recall on critical checks across 2,000+ new batteries a day. They are the final quality gate for every Tesla 4680 cell.
- Forecast thermal-runaway risk over the battery warranty life using telemetry from 3.5 million vehicles, to qualify next-generation cells.
- Maintain the ETL and dashboard pipeline for CT metrology (electrode overhang, core concavity, cathode gap), which saves 200+ technician hours a week.
Data Scientist
- Built a marketing measurement product on real-time 3D pose data that generated $600K in new revenue for a client in 3 months.
- Led in-store A/B tests at Compass Group USA that raised interaction-to-purchase conversion by 7 percentage points.
- Built a Monte Carlo engine for shelf-to-shelf transitions. Layout changes based on it lifted entrance-area revenue by 15%.
Cell Engineer Intern
- Built a Vision Transformer that detects core impingement and collapse in CT scans, improving defect recall by 40%.
- Replaced several $27K Keyence machines with a CT-based method that measures cell bulge to within 50 µm.
Summer Associate, Credit Fraud Risk
- Improved the PySpark small-business loan default model by 14% with features for erratic repayment, seasonal revenue, and spikes in credit utilization.
- Made high-risk applicant segments explainable for federal regulatory audits using feature binning and hierarchical clustering.
Undergraduate Researcher
- Built an algorithm for the optimal compressor wash interval on AE3007 engines and shipped it as an R Shiny app, cutting analysis time from 3–4 hours to under 5 minutes.
Research & internships
Projects & competitions
Earlier side projects, mostly from UCLA DataRes and datathons.
Forecasting hot dog sales for Chevron
1st place in the Chevron track at the Rice Datathon. Lowest RMSE of 45 teams.
Customer lifetime value analysis
Projected 5- and 10-year customer lifetime value for an eCommerce company and recommended focusing on its highest spenders. Won 2nd place overall at the Retina AI Datathon.
Make-A-Monet
Image style transfer with CycleGAN and Pix2Pix, served through a Plotly Dash app.
California wildfire crisis
Led a team of six on a geospatial analysis of a decade of CAL FIRE data.
COVID-19 vaccine rollout
Prophet forecasts of vaccination milestones, plus Twitter sentiment analysis.
Variability in baseball stadiums
R Shiny app showing how ballpark dimensions affect batting outcomes.
Toolkit
Languages & ML
Data & MLOps
Analytics
Awards
- 1st Place, Chevron TrackRice University Datathon · 2021
- 2nd Place, Prosperity TrackUCSD DataHacks · 2021
- 1st Place OverallDSS Datathon for Social Good, UC Berkeley · 2020
- 3rd Place, City Search TrackTAMU Datathon · 2020
- 2nd Place OverallRetina AI R Datathon · 2020
- Gandhi Memorial ScholarshipSan Diego Indian American Society · 2019
Education
Let's talk
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area. I'm happy to hear about data science roles and interesting problems in any domain.