Industry Advisory Board (IAB)

Ashley Anhalt ✉️

Data Science Manager | Genworth Financial

Ashley grew up in Tucson and graduated from the UArizona in 2013 with degrees in applied mathematics and systems engineering.  She moved east for graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh studying industrial engineering, and has been living in Pittsburgh since.  Ashley is an accomplished data scientist who enjoys problem solving to better tell the story within the data.  She works as a Data Science Manager in Operations Analytics at Genworth Financial.  She previously worked at PNC Bank as a Data Scientist within the Customer Experience Analytics team. (Pittsburgh, PA)

Skills: Data science, machine learning, natural language processing, data analytics, data visualization

Dan Champion

Experimental and Design Physics | Lawrence Livermore National Labs (LLNL)

As an Experimental Physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) Daniel supports multiple Department of Energy (DoE) mission areas in research, analysis, forward modeling, and large scale experiment operations. Daniel works in collaboration with physicists, engineers, and other mathematicians at the DoE National Labs to introduce and apply advanced analytic capabilities to the large-scale physics experiments at LLNL and across the DoE lab complex. Daniel has a BA and MA in Mathematics from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a PhD in mathematics from the UArizona where he specialized in geometric analysis.  In his years within Industry and the Government sector (Biotech, DoD, E-commerce, DoE) Daniel has leveraged his pure math background and moved towards applied mathematics and applied science where opportunities for advanced algorithms, analytic capabilities, and predictive modeling are abundant (Las Vegas, NV) 

Brie Finegold ✉️  

Mathematician, Member of Technical Staff III | Rincon Research Corporation

Brie came to Tucson in 2010 for a postdoc at UArizona after earning her PhD in Mathematics from UC Santa Barbara. During graduate school, she was a Mass Media Fellow for the AAAS at Scientific American magazine. Over the last nine years, she has honed engineering and programming skills. She enjoys swing dancing, yoga, rock climbing and tutoring mathematics. STEM outreach at events like the Festival of Books keep her busy. (Tucson, AZ)

Skills: Cyclostationary processing, association algorithms, geolocation, data analysis, uncertainty estimation, data visualization, technical writing  

Andrew Gillette ✉️

Computational Mathematician | Lawrence Livermore National Labs (LLNL)

At the Center for Applied Scientific Computing at LLNL in California, Andrew works on research projects for the Department of Energy involving numerical simulations, scientific visualization, and machine learning.  From 2013-20, Andrew was an Assistant and then Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics at UArizona.  He has active research collaborations with faculty in the Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in Applied Mathematics at UArizona. (Livermore, CA)

Skills: Scientific machine learning, numerical methods for partial differential equations, computational geometry, high performance computing, graphics and visualization, education and outreach

Bridget Kennedy

Senior Lead Scientist | Intelligent Automation Inc. (IAI), BlueHalo

Bridget received her PhD in mathematics from the University of Arizona in 2009. She worked for the Department of Defense from 2010-2019. Her products range across a variety of Computer Vision applications: text localization (for OCR); zero-shot learning; and video action recognition. Bridget is currently Senior Lead Scientist at IAI, a BlueHalo company. Since joining IAI in 2019, she has worked on machine learning lifecycle research; remote sensing R&D; material characterization research; and has been a tech lead for several DARPA and IARPA funded research programs. (Columbia, MD) 

Skills: Machine learning (ML), deep learning, computer vision, data science, ML Engineering 

Carolyn Lanser

Business Area Lead and Board Chair | Rincon Research Corporation (RRC)

Carolyn serves in two leadership positions at RCC, which designs, builds, tests, and fields high-performance Digital Signal Processing products and services. She earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and computer science from the U of A in 1999.  Carolyn spent many years honing her expertise in the development of scientific applications at RRC, gaining a deep understanding of complex technical challenges, which she now leverages to lead teams, drive business development, and shape technical strategy. She enjoys hiking, Pilates, and spending time with her three kids. (Tucson, AZ)

Skills: Strategic planning, data-driven decision-making, operational management, scientific software engineering

Kyle Pounder

Vice President, Analytics | Wealth, Inc.

Kyle is currently VP of Analytics at Wealth.com, a Phoenix-based fintech startup. In his role, he is primarily responsible for their product analytics initiatives. Prior to joining Wealth.com, Kyle worked in analytics and data science at Facebook/Meta and at Emailage/LexisNexis Risk Solutions. He earned a PhD in mathematics from UArizona in 2018. Outside of work, Kyle enjoys playing tennis and spending time with his family, including his two mini goldendoodles. (Gilbert, AZ)

Skills: Data science, A/B testing (experimentation), product analytics, software engineering

Toby Shearman

May Mobility

Toby is a data scientist at May Mobility, an autonomous vehicle startup making transportation more sustainable, safe, accessible and equitable through autonomy and government engagement. As an applied mathematician in industry, he thrives on tackling challenging problems and communicating solutions, relying on numerical computation, visualization, rigorous mathematics and statistics. Toby earned a PhD in applied mathemtatics from UArizona in 2017. His expertise in optimization, geometry, and uncertainty quantification allows him to translate strategic motivations into mathematical formulations.  (Ann Arbor, MI)

Jefferson Taft

Microsoft

Jeff is an Applied Scientist at Microsoft with expertise in Bayesian modeling, machine learning, and AI. He earned his PhD in mathematics from the University of Arizona in 2010, specializing in geometric flows. Jeff's career spans biotech, aerospace, and software, where he has applied advanced mathematical methods to real-world problems. He enjoys hiking, camping, biking, and horror films.  (Prescott, AZ)

Skills: Bayesian modeling, Machine Learning/AI, big data, algorithms, signal processing

Teri Suzuki

Senior Principal | Belltree Consulting, LLC

As a Senior Principal at Belltree Consulting, Teri develops in vitro and in vivo drug discovery strategies for emerging biotechnology companies. Teri has 20+ years of experience leading drug discovery teams that successfully generate small molecule drug candidates.  She is an inventor on US and international patents for Sanofi Pharmaceuticals and Reglagene. Teri received her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Arizona.  (Tucson, AZ)

Skills: Early development of treatments for human disease

Gleb Zhelezov

Senior Manager | Two Six Techonologies

Gleb received a PhD in mathematics from the University of Arizona in 2017. As a doctoral student and as a postdoc, Gleb's work focused on interacting particle systems, numerical methods, and phylogenetics. He now works on natural language processing and censored time series analysis. (Albuquerque, NM)

Skills: Data science, machine learning, Bayesian methods, agentic systems, large language model (LLM) evaluation