Connecting the dots - from physics to online advertising

In this talk, Monica Cheng is going to share her career path from a physics Ph.D. graduate to a science manager. In her early career, Monica worked in many domains: hard drive design ; product integrity in consumer electronics; data science; machine learning and online advertising. Throughout these transitions, one thing remained the same: the scientific method of using hypothesis testing and data to solve complex problems in a simple and elegant way. One studies many external factors behind phenomena and the connections between them. In data science, for example, the dataset is studied carefully to ensure good coverage and quality; hidden patterns and trends from structured or unstructured data are then found to form a hypothesis. Experiments are often used to validate the hypothesis in the form of A/B testing or multivariate testing, and multi-armed bandit. There are thus many similarities in problem solving between Physics and data science. Moreover, thinking big and diving deep are probably the two most important qualities in data science that come naturally from those with a physics background. Finally, the speaker will talk about the key to landing a successful career in the different opportunities of data science.