Amy Heineike - Data Scientists at Work - page 230

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Amy Heineike
Quid
Amy Heineike is the Director of Mathematics at Quid, an intelligence platform
that combines natural language processing, machine learning, network science, and
data visualization to aid Fortune 500 companies, hedge funds, and government
agencies in answering big, high-level questions about what's happening in the world.
As citizen and data journalism increase in size and scope, and social, scientific, and
technological information becomes available, more content than ever is available for
understanding what is happening in specific sectors around the world. Quid brings
together technology and patent data, and consumes more than one and a half
million articles a day to enable continuous information delivery to its clients in the
form they need to understand the events, trends, and patterns relevant to their
concerns. Developing this product entails challenges in terms of data processing,
communication of results, and delivery of a complex data science intelligence platform
that is simple and clear enough for any user.
Heineike's career before venturing into data science spanned the study of
mathematics at Cambridge University and the modeling of complex human systems
and cities for businesses and governments as an economic consultant at Volterra
Partners. Fascinated by the graph theory behind social networks, she was particularly
interested in modeling the economic and social impacts of the interaction of cities
and transportation networks, which she applied to Crossrail, the 73-mile railway
line under construction across Greater London. Heineike exemplifies both the drive
necessary to switch tracks into a career in data science and the curiosity about data
that can lead to insights, products, and even companies. Her dynamic combination
of hustle and flow animates her accounts of how her desire to explore new data sets
led to her collaboration with the Quid founding team, and blossomed into a core part
Quid's current product offerings. Heineike's skill at communicating complex human,
business, and government networks in ways understandable to nontechnical clients
is on display in her interview.