The University of San Francisco Data Science Speaker Series

We are thrilled to welcome Chakravarthy Nagarajan, Principal Solutions Architect at Amazon Web Services, who specializes in Generative AI. At AWS, he designs transformative solutions that address complex enterprise challenges. With more than twenty years of experience in AI and machine learning, high-performance computing, big data analytics, and cloud infrastructure, Chakravarthy helps organizations build systems that align with their business goals and technical needs.

Beyond his work with clients, Chakravarthy is a recognized thought leader. He regularly speaks at major technology conferences, publishes open-source solutions that tackle industry-wide challenges, and writes technical blogs that make complex concepts in generative AI and cloud architecture more accessible to a broader audience.

In this session, Chakravarthy will explore AWS’s comprehensive Generative AI ecosystem. He will introduce a variety of foundation models available through different deployment options, including Amazon’s proprietary models, third-party offerings via Amazon Bedrock, customization with SageMaker, and self-hosted solutions. Participants will discover how these models enable intelligent AI agents capable of reasoning and autonomous action. Through real-world examples, attendees will gain insights into the technical infrastructure that powers effective AI agents, responsible implementation practices, and practical steps to develop their own agent applications using their preferred deployment methods.
This presentation will equip you with the knowledge and skills to make the most of AWS’s generative AI capabilities.

🔗 RSVP today to secure your spot!

#USFDataScience #SpeakerSeries #GenerativeAI #ArtificialIntelligence #MachineLearning #DataScience #CloudComputing #AWS #AmazonWebServices #AIagents #AIethics

We are excited to welcome back Eloi Pereira, Head of Data Science at Car IQ Inc. Car IQ is on a mission to revolutionize payments by connecting vehicles, merchants, and banks to enable seamless transactions. At the center of this ecosystem is the Machine Identity and Intelligence Services platform, which leverages real-time vehicle data to verify identity and prevent fraud both before and during transactions.
Building a high-volume, data-driven platform of this kind brings challenges of scalability, maintainability, and reliability. In this presentation, Eloi will discuss some of these challenges and share how his experience in building robots and working in aviation maintenance has helped him overcome them.

About the Speaker
Eloi Pereira is the Head of Data Science at Car IQ Inc., a data-driven payments platform that connects vehicles, merchants, and banks to streamline payments. Originally from Portugal, Eloi graduated from the Portuguese Air Force Academy with a degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering. He was part of the research team that developed the first unmanned aerial vehicles for the European Maritime Safety Agency, designed for pollution detection and tracking. He holds a master’s degree in Automation and Control from the University of Porto and a PhD in Systems Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Eloi also led the Portuguese Air Force’s metrology lab for five years and served as mission commander for UAV-based wildfire detection and management operations. Outside of work, he enjoys running, hiking, reading sci-fi, and watching FC Porto games.
Join us for this session to learn how expertise in robotics, aviation, and data science comes together to solve real-world fintech challenges.

🔗 RSVP now to secure your spot!

#USFDataScience #SpeakerSeries #FinTech #PaymentsInnovation #GenerativeAI #ArtificialIntelligence #DataScience #FraudPrevention #CarIQ #MachineLearning #CloudComputing

We are excited to welcome back our alumna Viviana Márquez. Viviana is the AI Community Lead at Prolific, where she helps AI teams build better machine learning systems by providing fast, self-serve access to diverse human data across the AI lifecycle. She holds a Master’s in Data Science from the University of San Francisco and has worked as a data scientist at HBO, Dataminr, and Royal Caribbean, among others. As an educator, she has trained more than 4,000 learners worldwide, from Fortune 500 teams to graduate students, transforming complex AI concepts into practical skills.
Fun fact: In 2021, Viviana competed in the Miss Universe Colombia contest as Miss Sucre, placing in the top 13.

Description
How do machines learn the meaning of words, and how do we know if they’ve learned it well? In this talk, we will explore the evolution of natural language processing, beginning with early representations such as one-hot vectors, moving through the breakthrough of Word2Vec, and continuing to the rise of transformers and today’s generative models like GPT. Along the way, we will examine the differences between representation models and generative models, and why evaluation is straightforward for one but a major challenge for the other.
The session will then dive into modern evaluation methods, including code-based checks and LLMs-as-judges, with a special focus on human-in-the-loop evaluation. We will explore how real human judgment is used to measure quality, safety, and usefulness in language AI. Attendees will leave with both a historical perspective and a practical framework for thinking about evaluation in their own projects.

🔗 Register now to join us.

#USFDataScience #SpeakerSeries #NaturalLanguageProcessing #GenerativeAI #MachineLearning #ArtificialIntelligence #AIethics #DataScience