Kimia Ameri

I've been in the data science field for more than 10 years when you count my grad school and teaching experiences, though my corporate experience in the United States is 3 years. I started my career teaching at university back in Iran, then came to the United States for my PhD. After completing my doctorate, I joined my current pharmaceutical company, which is my first official corporate job. I've been with the company for 3 years and 4 months, earning my promotion to Senior Data Scientist in the last year. My day-to-day work changes constantly, which suits my personality perfectly because I get really bored with routine. Last year, our organization adopted a new way of working, and I was assigned as a squad lead in addition to my data scientist role. I lead a small group of engineers, program managers, product managers, and data scientists who don't report to me directly, but I work as their lead on different projects. My job is now a combination of both managerial work and deployment and development. We have a lot of stand-ups that lead to defining what people have to do, and I manage objectives for different senior levels across the various projects I'm working on. One of my proudest achievements is being known as an easy person to talk to and feel comfortable with, even though our field is mostly known as an introvert-dominated world. My first boss, who had been in the industry for more than 30 years, taught me how to act like an extrovert and enjoy being in that part of the universe. One of my major current projects focuses on how to actually trust what is happening inside generative AI models. Even though it's still not in the production phase, I've been able to add guidelines, bring definitions to the whole team, and make them work in a safer area, serving as the point of contact when people want to know about this topic.