Monday 10th June 2024
Demand for data professionals is high and the data analysis, data science and data engineering sectors are continuing to grow. I interviewed Dr. Anahita Talwar to discover her route in data science and why she chose this career.
What was your pathway into data science?
I started off with an interest in science at school and completed my undergraduate degree in biological sciences at Cambridge University, followed by a masters in Neuroscience at UCL. I then worked for a biotech company in cognitive neuroscience for 2 years before starting a PhD in computational psychiatry. This was the first time I was introduced to coding and using computational models and received training and support during the PhD to help me wrap my head around these new skills! It was during my PhD that I realised how important statistics was, before setting up an experiment I had to know what statistical analysis I wanted to complete at the end before I could design the experiment. It's the most important part of the whole process. I was also surprised to realise there were so many different interpretations of data and it was far less black and white. This led me to pursue a career in data science and have the opportunity to use statistical modelling to find patterns and solve problems.