Senior Data Scientist at the University of Chicago

Please apply at https://uchicago.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/External/job/Chicago-IL/Sr-Data-Scientist_JR24587

About the Department
 

The TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health (TMW Center) develops science-based interventions, tools, and technologies to help parents and caregivers interact with young children in ways that maximize brain development. A rich language environment is critical to healthy brain development, however few tools exist to measure the quality or quantity of these environments. Access to this type of data allows caregivers to enhance interactions in real-time and gives policy-makers insight in how to best build policies that have a population-level impact.

The wearable team within TMW Center is building a low-cost wearable device that can reliably and accurately measure a child’s early language environment vis-à-vis the conversational turns between a child and caregiver. The goal is to provide accurate, real-time feedback that empowers parents and caregivers to create the best language environment for their children.

Job Summary
 

The job works independently to perform a variety of activities relating to software support and/or development. Analyzes, designs, develops, debugs, and modifies computer code for end user applications, beta general releases, and production support. Guides development and implementation of applications, web pages, and user-interfaces using a variety of software applications, techniques, and tools. Solves complex problems in administration, maintenance, integration, and troubleshooting of code and application ecosystem currently in production.

We are searching for a strategic and inquisitive senior data scientist to develop and optimize innovative AI-based models focused on speech/audio processing. The senior data scientist is expected to outline requirements, brainstorm ideas and solutions with leadership, manage data integrity and conduct experiments, assign tasks to junior staff, and monitor performance of the team.

Responsibilities

• Formulates, suggests, and manages data-driven projects to support the development of audio algorithms and use cases.
• Analyzes data from various entities for later use by junior data scientists.
• Assesses scope and timelines, prioritize goals, and prepare project plans to meet product and research objectives.
• Delegates tasks to junior data scientists and provide coaching to improve quality of work.
• Continuously trains and nurtures data scientists to take on bigger assignments.
• Provides leadership in advancing the science of TMW Center interventions by generating new ideas and collaborating with the research analysis team.
• In collaboration with CTO, selects and guides decisions on statistical procedures and model selections, including conducting exploratory experiments to develop proof of concept.
• Cross-validate models to ensure generalization and predictability.
• Stays informed about developments in Data Science and adjacent fields to ensure most relevant methods and outputs are being leveraged.
• Ensures data governance is in place to comply with regulations and privacy standards and maintain documentation of methodologies, coding, and results.
• Designs new systems, features, and tools. Solves complex problems and identifies opportunities for technical improvement and performance optimization. Reviews and tests code to ensure appropriate standards are met.
• Utilizes technical knowledge of existing and emerging technologies, including public cloud offerings from Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.
• Acts as a technical consultant and resource for faculty research, teaching, and/or administrative projects.
• Performs other related work as needed.

Minimum Qualifications
 

Education:

Minimum requirements include a college or university degree in related field.

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Work Experience:

Minimum requirements include knowledge and skills developed through 5-7 years of work experience in a related job discipline.

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Certifications:

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Preferred Qualifications

Education:

• Master’s degree in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, or Economics with a focus on computer science.

Experience:

• Experience with Machine Learning and LLMs.
• Experience working on audio or speech data.
• Experience implementing edge models using TensorFlow micro, TensorFlow lite, and corresponding quantization techniques.
• Experience building audio classification models or speech to text models.
• Experience using the latest pre-trained models such as whisper and wav2vec.
• Proven experience taking an idea or user need and translating it into fully realized applications.
• Ability to relay insights in layman’s terms to inform business decisions. 
• 3+ years leading and managing junior data scientists.

Technical Skills or Knowledge:

• Proficiency in Python, Pytorch, Tensorflow, TinyML, Pandas and Numpy.
• Experience with cloud environments such as AWS, Azure or GCloud.
• Experience with command line interfaces (Linux, SSH).
• Experience processing large datasets with Spark, Dask or Ray.

Application Documents

• Resume (required)
• Cover Letter (preferred)

When applying, the document(s) MUST be uploaded via the My Experience page, in the section titled Application Documents of the application.