Master of Science in Business Analytics

Haoran Xu

Haoran Xu graduated with a bachelor's degree in Finance and Information systems from the University of Washington. Haoran is passionate about data analytics and the financial industry. He is committed to combining the power of data analytics with the financial industry, especially the investment, research, and risk management area.  At the MSBA program, Haoran enhanced his technical skills including database management, machine learning, prescriptive modeling, data visualization, and optimization using Python, SQL, R, and Tableau. 

Upon graduation, Haoran looks forward to working in the investment banking and asset management industry as he uses data analytics models to provide innovative solutions.

Ian Lee

A business strategist, product manager, and sales lead, Ian has decade-long professional experience in finance, aviation, and technology.

Ian graduated from New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business with degrees in Finance and Information Systems. He subsequently worked for an international bank in New York City, an airline start-up based in Taipei, and a value-added semiconductor component distributor with business focus in China. Ian had led a project building up a new SQL-based cost and revenue database when he worked for an airline. He also served as the product manager overseeing sales and marketing portfolios for European and American suppliers of Connected Mobility (Autonomous Driving) and Embedded Systems (IoT) ICs when he worked in the semiconductor industry.

Ian returned to school in 2020 and joined the MSBA program at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, as he believes data would be the defining force for any business to grow and prosper in the future. The curriculum not only enhanced and polished his data analytical skills, but also acquainted him with novel data science, machine learning, and predictive modelling knowledge and techniques. Ian was able to utilize and apply these skill sets in his summer internship at an Atlanta-based eCommerce/online marketing company, and he is excited to explore how he can benefit and support real-world business with these newly acquired expertise and his industry experience.

Jack Sampiere

Having begun his undergraduate studies as an engineering student and varsity soccer player at Carnegie Mellon University, Jack ultimately graduated from UCLA in 2020 with a B.S. in Mathematics / Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences. His interest in analytics arose during a summer internship at an environmental consulting firm, Ramboll, where he applied advanced statistical methods to better understand and predict the distribution of air pollutants in urban settings. He gained further experience in the field as a researcher with UCLA’s Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science & Engineering (JIFRESSE), where he wrote Python scripts to automate the analysis of climatological datasets.

Jack joined the MSBA program at UCLA Anderson with the intention of enriching the technical and interpersonal skills he acquired as an undergrad and setting himself up for success in the world of data science. He became thoroughly invested in the program during his time there, serving as one of two VPs of Admissions and working as a researcher with the Strategic Planning Committee, where he analyzed MBA students’ career data to provide insights that helped Anderson further develop its academic and professional offerings.

In addition to the technical skills he acquired in an academic setting during his time in the MSBA program, Jack also gathered a diverse set of work experience. During the spring of 2021, he interned as a Data Engineer at Data Sleek, where he leveraged tools such as SQL and Python to analyze and transform e-commerce and retail data for clients, streamlining and enhancing the efficiency of various business processes. He spent the following summer as a Data & Analytics Scientist Intern with the Nike Sport Research Lab. Here, he developed machine learning models that translated raw time series sensor data into valuable biomechanical insights, furthering athlete understanding and developing a means of helping everyday athletes better understand how they move and run. During his time with Nike, Jack developed a passion for working with performance-related data from wearable devices.

Upon graduating from Anderson, Jack will be joining WHOOP as a Data Scientist in Boston, MA. Here, he hopes to leverage his diverse skillset to help athletes around the world optimize their sleep, performance, and recovery.

Jing Sun

Jing graduated in 2014 from Harbin Institute of Technology with her undergraduate degree majoring in Electrical Engineering and Automation. She worked for State Grid Corporation of China, the largest utility company in the world, for four years as an electrical engineer. And she got her first Master’s degree from Queen Mary University of London in 2018 in Accounting and Finance.

Jing is pursuing her Masters in Business Analytics at UCLA Anderson School of Management, where she has the valuable opportunity to combine data science and business strategy for powerful decision-making. In 2020, she interned at Palo Alto Networks as a business analyst. She won the top 3 in the company Internfest competition. And she is now working at Sprout, a fast-growing startup company, as a business operations intern. And she will start her full-time job at Meta in the coming year.

Jing enjoys cooking, singing and playing piano. She won a lot of prizes in singing and speech competitions when she was in China.

Jingyuan (Kelsey) Li

Before joining the MSBA program, Kelsey graduated from University of California, Los Angeles with a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry. Taking an unconventional path towards data analytics, she found her interest in data-driven decision-making during her multiple internships and projects which motivated her to pursue a Master's degree to further refine her analytics skill set and business acumen. Coming from a science background, Kelsey believes data analytics tools have the potential to transform healthcare in many different ways.

Maunik Desai

I am currently pursuing an MS in Business Analytics at Anderson School of Management. I am currently working on estimating box office opening weekend collection for releases in the US. 

During my summer, I worked on PMDI price time series and product sales forecasting. I also created datasheets showcasing end-to-end machine learning architecture.

Before Anderson, I have worked as a Business Analyst and a Sales Engineer for AthenasOwl, a Machine Learning powered video recognition product. It mines granular details in a video to identify faces, detect objects, identify locales, recognize spoken keywords, and much more.

I was directly involved in solving business problems for prominent players across the US, Germany, UK, Japan, and India. Some use-cases involved implementing contextual ad-placement, moment identification, content performance analytics, creating bright catalogs for video libraries.

I hold a B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.

Nanbo Li

Nanbo is an incoming self-starting data scientist ready to make a splash in this data-centric era. He grew up in a completely non-English environment, and yet a casual occasion during high school to watch the movie “Avengers” sparked his curiosity in Western culture, which propelled his decision to come to Los Angeles for college. And he stayed in California ever since.

After graduating from University of Southern California, Nanbo worked at Ernst & Young LA office as an Assurance Associate for a year. During his tenure at EY, Nanbo got extensive exposure to data-driven business projects, which not only advanced his analytics skills, but also paved the way for his future pivot into the data science field. Realizing that EY might not be an ideal intermediate station for his career development, Nanbo joined UCLA Anderson’s MSBA program to systematically hone his data skill sets.

At UCLA MSBA, besides coursework, Nanbo further developed his data acumen by participating in multiple internship programs throughout 2021. Leveraging his passion for entertainment/streaming, Nanbo interned with both Peacock (NBCUniversal’s streaming platform) and Roku, where he sharpened and applied a wide spectrum of data science/analytics skill sets, ranging from basic data cleaning (SQL, Python), A/B test, causal inference, predictive modeling, all the way to NLP and even neural network-based recommender system, to optimize both product and customer journey. 

In terms of his post-MSBA journey, Nanbo is debating on joining either Roku or Disney Streaming Service, at which he can keep his dedication to the entertainment/streaming field, or Facebook, where he can venture into the social media arena.

For the long run, Nanbo looks forward to contributing to the calling of data democratization by leveraging whatever knowledge or skill sets he has picked up along the way.

Natasha Kumar

Natasha graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.S. in Mathematics and Minor in Business in 2017. During her time at the University of Michigan, Natasha was a VP of the Michigan Economics Society and completed a Quantitative Modeling internship at Capital One. She went on to spend 3 years working as a consultant for IBM and KPMG where she specialized in developing enterprise blockchain solutions for cross-industry clients. 

Having a passion for analytics and technology, Natasha joined the MSBA program at UCLA Anderson to learn about the practical applications of analytics in the business world and develop her technical skills. Throughout her MSBA journey, she worked with the Business Analytics Association as a VP of Career and was a member of the Strategy & Operations Management Association. Natasha completed a spring internship with Marketscience in Marketing Analytics and a summer internship with Facebook in Product Experience Analytics. 

Rohan Desikan

Rohan graduated in 2020 from UCLA with a Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering, and immediately afterwards decided to continue his journey as a Bruin by joining the MSBA program at UCLA Anderson. As someone who had internship experience in a variety of fields such as engineering and product marketing during his time at undergrad, Rohan felt that his skillset was meant for analytics - specifically, being able to extract a story from numbers. 

During his time at the MSBA program, Rohan has learnt valuable skills that have allowed him to succeed both personally and professionally. Classes such as Operations Analytics, Prescriptive Analytics, and Machine Learning have opened up a wide range of opportunities for him, and have allowed him to jumpstart his career in consulting. 

After graduation, Rohan will be joining ZS Associates as a Decision Analytics Associate in San Francisco. He is excited for this role and hopes he can apply his MSBA skills to make the best out of this opportunity.

Shirley Jiang

Shirley graduated from the University of Michigan in 2020 with a major in Data Science and a minor in Art and Design. During undergrad, she developed technical skills such as C++, SQL, and Python. During her Junior year summer, Shirley interned at J.D. Power’s data analytics and consulting team, where she gained some experience applying technical skills on real world business problems. With the hope of gaining more business knowledge, Shirley joined the UCLA MSBA program directly after undergrad to build up her business acumen. 

During her summer at MSBA, Shirley interned at Facebook as a Data Scientist. She worked on the Instagram Shopping team where she analyzed the relationship between fan engagement and shopping monetization success. Post-graduation, Shirley will join Facebook as a full-time data scientist in Seattle. She hopes that she will be able to make a meaningful impact using both the technical skills and business knowledge she has developed over the years. 

Timothy Manolias

Timothy is a multifaceted, detail-oriented data scientist with over two years of experience in operations analytics. He is eager to craft innovative, data-driven approaches that enhance the far-reaching effects of operational efficiency. Seeking to bridge the gap between data science and business strategy, Timothy is uniquely poised to extract value from data and drive strategies that optimize business development.

Timothy studied computer science with a Minor in Mathematics at the University of Miami. Throughout his undergraduate studies, he pursued a computer science track in data science, where he explored areas such as machine learning, deep learning, and statistics. Throughout his undergraduate studies, Timothy worked as a Data Analyst at Serene Home Nursing Agency where he used Python to automate antiquated manual processes. Transforming operational efficiencies at Serene resulted in significant improvements across marketing, payroll & staffing departments.

Empowered by his impact at Serene and the University of Miami, Timothy sought further business and data science acumen at UCLA’s MS in Business Analytics program. Throughout the MSBA program, Timothy sharpened his ability to augment business processes and enhance operational efficiencies via courses in machine learning, optimization, and operations analytics. His education at UCLA bolstered his passion to elevate business strategies and yield competitive advantages through data science tools.

A Technical Data Analyst internship at Intuit presented Timothy with opportunities to apply data-driven strategies that fostered loyalty among high-value merchants. This experience solidified his career trajectory to help merchants capitalize on insights from their data. Now, Timothy is joining IBM Consulting as a Senior Data Scientist to empower innovation, streamline business processes, and help clients gain a competitive edge.

Xiaoyi Wang

Xiaoyi graduated from Boston University with a dual degree in Philosophy and Finance. He has interning experience in both the traditional financial analyst role and the more data/tech-oriented investment analyst role in technology firms like Tencent. With renewed passion for finance after discovering the prevailing of data analytics in this industry, Xiaoyi is determined to utilize his analytical and programming skills in his future career.

At MSBA Class of 2021, Xiaoyi has enjoyed thorough support from the staff. Time-series Analytics and Internet Customer Analytics are his favorite classes in the program. These classes equipped Xiaoyi with advanced and practical skills that are relevant to most industries that leverage data analytics. 

Yanyu (Chloe) Xu

Chloe is an MS in Business Analytics at UCLA Anderson and a Class President of her cohort. She was a Product Analyst Intern at Pinterest in summer 2021. During her time at Pinterest, she was able to work cross-functionally with the product manager, engineering team and design team to expand the use cases for visual search features through measuring the value of visual search features and identifying new opportunities for visual search. She was able to do funnel analysis using SQL and Python, create a dashboard, build metrics and do A/B test experiments to measure this product's success and translate the data insights into product ideas that align with the product manager's OKR. As a result, she recommended 4 product recommendations with an expectation of increase in 2.1M+ monthly feature usage and her recommendation was accepted by the product manager to proceed to the next step.

Besides her work experience, she joined the 2020 Humana-Mays Healthcare Analytics Case Competition in September 2020 with a team of three and her team won 3rd place out of 279 teams with over 750 master-level participants. She demonstrated strong machine learning skills using Python and data storytelling skills through this case competition, where she translated data results from machine learning models into business recommendations, which were recognized by Humana Executives.

She is a combination of strong data analytical skill, consulting mindset, strong product sense and data storytelling skill, which can be a great fit for your company.

Zihan (Jason) Li

Zihan received his bachelor’s degree in Statistical Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara and he is currently pursuing his master’s degree in Business Analytics at UCLA Anderson. He has completed many course projects such as survival analysis, machine learning, and time series using R and Python.

For 2019 Winter, Zihan had a three-month intern experience in Boston Consulting Group. He did a prediction of the gaming industry future trend based on past 10 years’ datasets via R using Time Series analysis, resulted in an accuracy score of 0.846.

Zihan also took part in the Adobe Analytics Challenge. He was able to analyze a large dataset using different machine learning models and translate those key insights from machine models’ feature importance into an actionable business plan.

Zuochu (Dylan) Zhao

Zuochu Zhao received his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the Pepperdine University, and he is currently pursuing his master’s degree in Business Analytics at UCLA Anderson. During his graduate studies, he has completed many projects and course work using SQL, Python, and R. In addition, he has used these tools to complete different projects in courses such as database management, machine learning, and statistics.

During summer 2021, Zuochu interned on the Service Program team at Tesla Motors, Inc., where he gained the experience analyzing large data sets and working with different clients. He was able to learn quickly from his manager and team members and took part in meaningful projects that translated data into business insights, making valuable suggestions for clients.

In both his academic and professional life, he has been consistently praised as detail-oriented by his professors and peers. Whether working on academic, extracurricular, or professional projects, he applies proven analytical, research, and teamwork skills, which he hopes to leverage into the Monetization Strategy Analyst role at your company.

This month, Zuochu also took part in the Whimsical Analytic Project. He worked collaboratively with four other classmates in analyzing data from the Data Sleek’s data warehouse. Using the information provided in the Data Dictionary, he listed the Metrics and KPI that a typical E-commerce should have related to orders and payments that delivered business opportunities and solutions based on the data analyzed.