John Boudreaux

My experience primarily comes from the chemical industry. I received my BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in May of 2015, with a minor in business. During my time in undergraduate studies, I had internships with a start-up oil and gas company, the logistics procurement division of a large chemical company, and the utilities plant of a large chemical site. I was also very involved with the University of Texas Rugby team, playing all 4 years and holding positions such as president and vice president.

Upon graduation I joined BASF, the world's largest chemical company, as a part of a rotational program. I spent 8 months as a quality engineer doing Lean Six Sigma projects for a plant that manufactured auto parts. After that, I moved to marketing petrochemicals where I provided analyses for pricing, market forecasting, and market mapping. My final rotation was in our company's group for data science for business solutions, where I worked primarily in modeling chemical manufacturing processes using machine learning algorithms incorporating process knowledge. Upon completion of the rotational program, I have continued to work in the data science group where I have worked on more chemical modeling projects in addition to other business questions.

I am looking forward to learning more about data science through the MIDS program at Berkeley to broaden my knowledge base. From my experience, I have found that interpreting machine learning models to make business decisions can be a complex task. I hope to find new and innovative ways to visualize and explain these topics through my continued education.