Filipa Peleja, Senior Data Scientist @ Vodafone Portugal & Invited Professor @ NOVA IMS
PWIT Profile
Early years and where you came from?
From a young age, I’ve always been enthusiastic about technology. I first stepped into the tech world as an undergrad in Computer Science and Informatics. Even though I was eager to learn all aspects of the program, my true passion was encountered with my first machine learning course. This was a stepping stone and came to define the next steps of my academic career, namely my choice of Masters and later on, Ph.D thesis. Notably, my academic accomplishments during my Ph.D. were recognized by being awarded the 1st prize of an industry challenge from NOS (telco company) and innumerous publications in international conferences among which, top tier conferences like SIGIR and ACL. My success has made me stand out as an example of an alumni thriving in the world of Computer Science. For this reason, I’ve frequently been invited to speak at my University, where undergrad and Ph.D. students find motivation and inspiration in my speeches. In addition, I’ve been invited as a speaker at GraPE, a prestigious event that not only brings together Portuguese scientists working abroad, but also where the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the keynote speaker.
How were you introduced to the world of the Portuguese tech industry?
Following my Ph.D., I had the opportunity to enroll in an internship at Yahoo! Research, which showed me the benefits of applied data science in real industry use-cases. Data science was an area that grew amazingly and when I finished my studies I realized that I had big chances to land in an industry job that would truly value my academic background. Remarkably, I was offered a Data Scientist position at Eurecat in Barcelona. There I had the opportunity to work and provide insights for various problems. Later on, I was recruited as a Senior Data Scientist at Vodafone, Portugal.
Walk me through your work and what you are doing now in the tech industry.
Vodafone has been an amazing challenge. Working in a telco has given me the opportunity to intervene in different use-cases. Vodafone has been a truly fostering environment, allowing me to exchange insights with highly skilled Big Data teams located all over the world, as well as broaden my horizons and develop myself intellectually. This opportunity has helped to mature my leadership skills, which will be instrumental in the next steps of my career. Finally, at Vodafone, I was invited to talk at a Vodafone Global Forum in Turkey. The aim of my talk was to share with different Vodafone teams work I’ve been developing for Big Data at Vodafone. Furthermore, I was awarded with a Vodafone Star Award as a recognition of my work in the Vodafone Big Data team.
I am delighted to work in an area that I feel very passionate about. But I also love to mentor, teach and pass along knowledge. For this reason, I enrolled in a teaching position at a post-graduation course for Data Science at Rumos, as an instructor at Neueda and also as an invited Professor at the Faculty NOVAIMS Business School. From these positions, I have the opportunity to teach text analytics, social network analysis among other courses, as well as supervise Master’s thesis. Importantly, teaching and mentoring allows me to continuously stand as a role model and a true inspiration for women in STEM.
What part of what you do, you love the most?
I feel that I am challenged almost every day. I love the fact that I’m constantly learning and being challenged. Also, that I can continuously share, and receive, knowledge from colleagues and students.
How do you think that your background and knowledge impact the way you approach your work in the Portuguese tech industry?
From my work, I notice that the way I think some challenges should be tackled are highly influenced from my Computer Science background, which gives me a very strong level of technical specificities. From my experience as a researcher I noticed that I have a more open mind for new innovative ways to tackle different problems.
What advice do you have for young women that want to get into tech and don’t know where to start?
I’d have many advices, but my first advice would be to do not give up when someone says you cannot do something. I’ve heard many times comments like, “you’ll never be able to do that” or “that’s not meant for someone like you”, my advice here is: follow what you believe and, mostly, you love to do and do not let other people comments push you down.
Walk me through a day in your life as a Portuguese women in tech.
I’ve been asked this question before and the first thing that I’d like to say is, my day as a woman in tech is not that different from a day as a man in tech. So, I start off by checking my weekly to-do list, picking up from what I’ve been working on and sometimes start a new challenge. My work life is always multitasking, solving one thing and then going back to something else I was working on. I’d say this is the average work-day, however, when I’m teaching after getting off at Vodafone I go to the University and teach to master’s students. Furthermore, even when I am not teaching, after I finish my job at Vodafone I reply to students doubts among other tasks related to the teaching course.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
I cannot recall a specific advice but what I do know it was very important to me during all my journey in the tech world was the support of the people closest to me.
What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?
Languages: PySpark, Python, Java
Software: Scikit-learn, Neo4J, D3, Cytoscape, Unix, PostgresSQL, Hadoop
You can find Filipa Peleja on LinkedIn.
