Hometown: Long Beach, NY
Major: Data Science
Domain Emphasis: Data Arts and Humanities
Data Science in Six Words: protean, insights, wonderful, dangerous, predictive, historic
Data Science gave Derek the ability to pursue his longtime passion for sports. As a boy, he remembers avidly tracking box scores and marking up score cards when he attended baseball games with his dad. “When I arrived at Cal, I had never even heard of the term data science, but I knew as soon as I started taking Data 8 that I wanted to work with data for the rest of my life,” he said. “This led me to start the Sports Analytics Group at Berkeley, a Data Science club on campus focusing on sports research and consulting for professional teams like the Golden State Warriors, San Francisco Giants and Cleveland Cavaliers.”
During his time at Berkeley, Derek used data science to develop insights on everything from sports fans Twitter habits to death row inmates’ last words. He investigated some of the ethical considerations of how we monitor and use athletes’ health data. And he helped create a Sports Analytics Connector Course.
Data Science has allowed me to pursue what I once thought were wild dreams.
“Having a Data Science background also helped me to land dream internships at the Phoenix Suns and New York Mets and land a fulltime position with another team,” he said. “Data Science has allowed me to pursue what I once thought were wild dreams.”
After graduation, he’s headed back East for a business analytics job with the New York Islanders.