#77 Solving Complex Data Problems at a Venture Capital Firm with Angela Wilkins – Founder and Managing Director

Angela Wilkins is the founder and Chief Scientist at Mercury Data Science (MDS) where she works with Mercury's portfolio companies to identify solutions for complex data problems. Prior to MDS, Angela was a member of faculty research at Baylor College of Medicine and led projects at the policy think tank, Center of Science and Law. She developed her machine learning knowledge in the biomedical field as part of IBM's Watson AI and DARPA Simplex Project. Angela received her M.S and Ph.D. from Lehigh University, all in Theoretical Physics.  Enjoy the show! We speak about: [01:10] How Angela started in the data space [03:45] Using proteins to understand aging [07:35] Setting team expectations [09:15] Challenges at Baylor [15:15] Using data science to make policy [18:30] Leading seminars on machine learning and data science [22:05] TrendKite – putting the right data in front of the PR person [26:40] The transition from academia into business [30:15] Rapid fire questions [35:00] Future data science challenges [36:10] Do as many things as you can Resources: Angela’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adwilkins Mercury Fund: https://mercuryfund.com TrendKite: https://www.trendkite.com Quotes: “We look to see how proteins, drugs, and diseases interact.” “We came up with an algorithm for aligning protein networks along multiple species.” “I left Baylor because I needed new problems.” “Algorithms are useful everywhere.” Thank you to our sponsors: Fyrebox - Make Your Own Quiz! RMIT Online Master of Data Science Strategy and Leadership Gain the advanced strategic, leadership and data science capabilities required to influence executive leadership teams and deliver organisation-wide solutions. Visit online.rmit.edu.au for more information And as always, we appreciate your Reviews, Follows, Likes, Shares and Ratings. Thank you so much for listening. Enjoy the show!