The instructors of the Data Analytics for Business Professionals certificate are leaders in Chicago’s analytics industry. Our instructors have extensive knowledge and experience in working with data to make evidence-based decisions, as well as connections to the industry to bring in real-world problems so that learning is relevant for students’ career advancement goals.
Shree Bharadwaj, MS
Shreenidhi Bharadwaj is an educator, data enthusiast and an analytics practitioner. Currently, as M&A COE lead, he advises Private Equity/Venture Capital firms and C-level Executives on value creation, post-close synergies along with data & analytics(BI/AI) strategies focused on business outcomes. In his previous executive leadership role at Syndigo, he led the data strategy, data science, next-gen platform and M&A integrations. His expertise revolves around driving innovation, standardization, development & operationalizing machine learning models, data engineering at scale using on premise & cloud platforms, effective data visualizations, model-driven design & algorithmic thinking. He was elected to the Global Standards Architecture Board at GS1, where he worked with global industry leaders to develop standards, road maps, governance & compliance requirements relating to food services, healthcare, retail, supply chain & CPG/FMCG verticals. His experience spans multiple verticals such as Healthcare, Retail, MarTech, AdTech, EdTech, FinTech, Telecom and public safety with companies operating as startups to fortune 100.
Shreenidhi is a graduate of the MS Analytics program from The University of Chicago and BE, Electronics and Communications from Manipal Institute of Technology, India. His interests include Data Engineering, Intelligent Systems and Robotics, Machine Learning at scale, Data Visualization & Knowledge Engineering.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ssbharadwaj
Email: sbharadwaj@uchicago.edu
Courses
Master of Science in Analytics:
Certificate in Data Analytics for Business Professionals:
This instructor teaches for multiple programs. If you’re interested in a course from another program, please visit that program page to learn more about applying. Students may register for one certificate course before applying to a certificate program.
Oleg Melnikov, PhD
Oleg Melnikov has received his PhD in Statistics from Rice University, advised by Dr. Katherine Ensor in the thesis topic of non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) applied to time series. Currently, he is leading a Data Science team at ShareThis Inc, Palo Alto, CA, and has decades of experience in mathematical and statistical research and teaching, finance (portfolio management and security analysis), ad tech, databases and software development.
His academic path started with a BS in Computer Science (and some years in pre-med). Now, he holds masters' degrees in CS (Machine Learning track) from Georgia Institute of Technology, Mathematics from UC-Irvine (where he was in Math PhD program), Statistics from Rice University, MBA from UCLA, and Finance (equivalent certificate).
Oleg is passionate about education and hard sciences. He has been teaching graduate level statistical inference and statistical learning at Stanford University in Fall '19 & Winter '20. Also, he taught graduate level Quantitative Financial Risk Management courses at Rice in 2014-2015 and was a lead TA for various courses in mathematics, statistics, and time series at UCI and Rice.
Rebeca Pop, MA
Rebeca Pop, MA, believes in the power of storytelling with data. Technology and tools cannot replace the human ability to draw insights and communicate effectively with data. Rather, thoughtful data visualization inspires action, and that is what Rebeca aspires to teach her students.
As a media analytics professional, Rebeca has provided insights to large clients in the CPG and Automotive space, such as Audi, VW, BMW, Unilever, and Samsung. Rebeca is an Analytics and Data Visualization subject matter expert, course writer, and instructor. She holds a MA from the University of Oklahoma and a BA from the University of Bucharest, Romania. Rebeca has presented her research and won several top paper awards at national and international conference, and her scholarly work has been published in the Encyclopedia of Public Relations.
Course
Ashish Pujari, MS
Ashish Pujari is a leader in data and analytics, IT strategy and technology consulting. As a Director of Analytics at GLG, Ashish leads the design and implementation of business intelligence, predictive analytics and visualization. Prior to joining GLG, Ashish served as an AVP of Analytics Architecture for CNA Insurance where he was responsible for insurance analytics platforms and data strategy.
Ashish specializes in big-data analytics, cloud computing, algorithm development, application and database design, decision management and visualization technologies. Ashish has been involved in technology consulting in finance, banking, insurance and communications domains for clients in Europe, North America and Asia.
Ashish earned a Master of Science in Analytics from the University of Chicago, and Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela. His research interests include parallel and distributed systems and machine learning. Read an interview with Ashish Pujari on the importance of data today ›
Contact: apujari@uchicago.edu
Courses
Master of Science in Analytics:
- MSCA 31012: Data Engineering Platforms for Analytics
- MSCA 31013: Big Data Platforms
- MSCA 37011: Deep Learning and Image Recognition
Certificate in Data Analytics for Business Professionals:
This instructor teaches for multiple programs. If you’re interested in a course from another program, please visit that program page to learn more about applying. Students may register for one certificate course before applying to a certificate program.
Anish Gera
Data Science Manager
Anish Gera is a Data Science Manager at Discover Financial Services. He is a MSc in Analytics graduate from University of Chicago and has gained significant expertise in applying machine learning and natural language processing across financial services to solve complex business problems. He holds B.Eng degree from Delhi University.
In his free time, Anish likes to cook Indian food and stream Netflix.
Joshua Goldberg
Data Scientist
Joshua Goldberg is a Data Scientist at Amazon focusing on solving demand-forecasting related problems with statistics, machine learning, and deep learning. He has strong interests in artificial intelligence and programming, having completed a Master of Science in Analytics at the University of Chicago. He also holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Accounting.
Prior to Amazon, Joshua was a Lead Data Scientist at Nuveen Investments and a senior research associate at Raymond James. In his free time, Joshua enjoys running, photography, and reading. He has finished two Chicago marathons and three half marathons.