Ph.D. Student Profile: Marco Gutierrez

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Marco Gutierrez

Hometown: Lima, Peru

Education: Ph.D. in Data Science, University of Virginia 

Predoctoral Fellow in Economics, Columbia University, NYC 

B.S. in Economics, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú

Q: When and how did you become interested in data science? 

For the past three years, I've worked at the intersection of natural language processing with economics to design public policies for developing countries.

Q: Choosing a doctoral program is a big decision. Why did you choose UVA's Ph.D. in Data Science? 

Getting involved in applications of natural language processing sparked an interest in exploring similar fields in data science, such as language-to-vision models and computer vision. As a result, doing a Ph.D. in Data Science at the University of Virginia was an important step in becoming a researcher in those areas.

Q: What areas of research interest you and why? 

Natural Language Processing, Language-to-Vision and Computer Vision.

Q: What do you hope to do with your data science degree? 

Become a research scientist at a laboratory specializing in language-to-vision.

Q: What advice would you give to prospective students considering a Ph.D. in Data Science?  What do you wish you had known before starting? 

1. Learning how to code in R/Python, from the basics to Object Oriented Programming. 
2. Solid foundations in CS, math, and statistics, focusing on algorithmics, convex optimization, and stochastic processes.

Q: What are your initial impressions of the school, faculty, and other students? 

The faculty focuses on ensuring we understand the background behind machine learning models regardless of their complexity.

Q: What is a fun fact about yourself? 

I love fiction! From short stories to movies and video games! Some of my favorite writers/directors are David Foster Wallace, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Roberto Bolaño.