Cohort 10 Student Spotlight: Meet Nestor Teodoro Chavez
Nestor is a student in Cohort 10 of the Master of Science in Data Science program at the University of San Francisco. He joined the MSDS program after completing his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California, Merced and working as a high school teacher in Marin County, California.
Background
Evie: Hey Nestor, can you start by telling us a little bit about your background?
Nestor: Yeah, so I grew up in Marin County, went to school here, and then I went away and studied computer science and engineering. After graduating from UC Merced, I became a teacher at a private school, so my background is kind of all over the place. I would say that my academic background is in computer science, and then my professional background is as a teacher, specifically as a math and science teacher.
Why Data Science?
Evie: Coming from teaching, why did you decide to pursue a career in data science?
Nestor: That was a pretty long process. Ultimately, the decision came down to really being interested in the medical field, but not really knowing how to get there. When I was looking into programs I was like, “Maybe I want to go to med school and become a doctor.” But the more I thought about it and the more I looked into it, I realized that wasn’t quite my role in the bigger system. So then, I came across business analytics which I found pretty interesting, and I was like, “well, I wonder if you can apply that to a medical setting,” and that’s when I saw that data science was more of the traditional math theory, and I was always interested in that. In college, I did a minor in applied mathematics and much of that was just looking at a lot of math theory. So because I wanted to get to the medical field, I saw data science as my gateway to doing that while bringing in my computer science background and my math background.
Why the USF MSDS Program?
Evie: That’s so cool, thank you for sharing! Going more specific, what led you to choose USF’s MSDS program?
Nestor: Like I said earlier, I was looking into programs in the area, and I think the biggest factor for me was the location, because it’s in the heart of San Francisco. Another factor is that it’s a one year program, so it’s super accelerated — you get in, get out, and you’re making a dramatic change or a dramatic shift, which is what I thought I needed. I didn’t want to waste any more time; I felt like I had already given up those four years as a teacher and yeah, the industry moves fast and you have to move with it. Besides that, I also started looking into some of the instructors and affiliations and I realized that I had watched a talk by Jeremy Howard, who was on the MSDS website at the time. Seeing him, I thought, “Okay, if this is the level of the program then I’m super interested,” and the more I looked into it the more I thought, “Yeah, this is a pretty solid program.”
Evie: I agree, I had a lot of the same reasons for why I chose to come here too. Do you remember what that talk was about?
Nestor: Yeah, it was about AI and machine learning, and I remember thinking about the fact that he was looking into how to solve this particular problem, it was kind of beyond me and it was so cool.
Favorite class and project?
Evie: So far in the program, what has been your favorite class and your favorite project?
Nestor: I think my favorite class so far has been data acquisition, because all of the projects have been very practical, specifically the search engine implementation project. Overall, I liked how the projects had different components that can be used in a broader sense, like web scraping, using different APIs, and things like that. There’s also a few other cool things that that class prompted me to look into; on YouTube, there’s this channel called Computerphile, and after learning about things like Selenium in data acquisition, as well as things from our relational databases class, it just made me so much more aware of the Internet as a whole with respect to cookies, hacking, specifically like SQL injection — just so many really eye opening things that make you think about how the Internet works.
Evie: I feel the same way; as challenging as the course can be at times, it has definitely been my favorite so far.
Areas you are most interested in?
Evie: You’ve touched a little bit on your interest in medicine, but could you dive deeper into what interests you most about data science within medicine, as well as any other areas of data science that interest you?
Nestor: There’s three areas that interest me with data science. The first, like I’ve said, is the medical field; the second is education, and the third is eSports — that’s a really big field that’s growing and has a lot of potential. I think that’s more of like a personal projects field for me, the whole eSports thing. Within the medical field, I’m specifically interested in neuroscience and studying the brain. There’s so much that we don’t know about the brain and so much we do know about the brain, and I want to learn more about it all. I think being able to understand things like Alzheimer’s or potentially playing a role in finding cures for cancer or Parkinson’s would be really cool. The other part that I’ve started to be more curious about in the medical field is predictive models. For example, the eligibility criteria to be put on a transplant list, a lot of that modeling at the moment is biased towards certain groups of people, and I think being able to tackle things at the intersection of data science, medicine, and social justice would be really interesting. The more I get involved with data science as a whole, and the more I get involved in that world, I could see myself being at the forefront of that change and driving impact that way.
Evie: That’s so interesting. I have a background in psychobiology and have learned about some of these biases as well, and it’s definitely an area of medicine where data science is needed.
Practicum
Evie: Can you talk a little bit about your practicum project, and maybe because we’ve just started our projects, could you tell me what some of your goals with your practicum are?
Nestor: The project is at UCSF regarding auto-segmentation of brain lesions with MRI imaging. From what I’ve learned so far, the data is collected with magnetic radiation imaging because it’s not invasive. I haven’t seen a lot of the data I’ll be working with yet, but the goal is to treat these brain lesions and come up with the best treatment strategy, so I’ll be doing a lot of deep learning models for the auto-segmentation process. From what I understand now, we want to use these 2D images and essentially build a 3D model to be able to figure out the optimal parameters for the treatment. That information would then go on to be used by a physician. Overall, my goal is to complete the project — I know that’s pretty ambitious and might not be within my power to do so, but I think just being able to push the bar, add something to the project and make any sort of progress is good. The hope is that eventually, when the project is complete, it will have a high impact on the field for patients. A more personal goal I have is seeing if I do actually like the medical field. I’ve said that this is an area of interest — doing this research — but I’ve never done it before, so I think that’s another thing for me to learn, like is this a passion of mine that I want to keep pursuing. Originally, the goal was to eventually do a PhD because I think it’d be really fun to do research and be a professor who has experience in the field and can give you guidance, but we’ll see if I actually want to continue on with more education or if I want to stay where I’m at. But for the project itself, the goal is definitely pushing it forward as much as I can.
Evie: Out of curiosity, do you know where the timeline of the project is at currently?
Nestor: From what I know now, I think they already have a trained model for identifying if the lesion is there or not with a certain percent accuracy, but this is just for the 2D scans, so this problem has already been solved. So now, we want to take that 2D and go to 3D, and come up with a course of action model, rather than a validation model. There are also a bunch of project that are all in the works in this lab and they all build off of each other.
Personal Interests
Evie: What do you like to do to unwind and how do you spend your free time outside of the program?
Nestor: I have two cats, so it’s always great to come home and hang out with my cats. My commute is on the ferry, so I also have some time to unwind when the day is done. Sometimes I’ll read, and sometimes I just sleep — that power nap really does wonders. On the weekend it’s mostly seeing family that’s in the area since most of my family lives in Marin, and other than that, I like going on hikes sometimes, and playing video games other times, you know, just getting to hang out with my friends.
