Data scientist alumna leads her team at Novetta in Tampa

It took no time for Kevin Hunt to begin a lucrative career in her specialized field after completing New College’s data science graduate program in 2019. Now she is a team lead at Novetta, a Tampa-based advanced analytics company.

“Novetta specializes in extracting clarity from the noisy complexity of big data at the speed and scale of the most intensive national security missions,” Hunt said. “Working for a federal contractor is very exciting. I’ve been able to lead my team through researching, developing and delivering a diverse range of cutting-edge data science applications.”

And Hunt is leading her team with a wealth of broad scientific knowledge. She had already established herself as a scientist by the time she arrived at New College—having earned two master of science degrees (one in biology from Purdue University, and one in biochemistry and molecular biophysics from the University of Chicago). But her experience in the data science program at New College helped catapult her career.

Data science is an interdisciplinary field that combines computer science, statistics and mathematics to solve complex problems—by revealing information hidden in large datasets known as big data. The data science program at New College draws students from across the globe, in part, because of its close relationships with corporate partners (like Novetta). In fact, Hunt’s experience at Novetta began as an internship for her spring practicum.

The internship—during which she pioneered the implementation of Pyspark to transform terabytes of disparate datasets—turned to full-time employment upon graduation. Within months, Hunt was quickly promoted to a team lead data scientist.

“The data science program at New College set me up for success. I feel very well-valued by company now, and I’m fortunate to be surrounded by so many amazing role models (software engineers, data scientists, machine learning engineers, etc.) at this stage of my career,” Hunt said. “I can’t wait for what the future holds for my career and I’m so grateful for my experience at New College.”

While studying at New College, Hunt was also accepted into an advanced internship program with the Langley Research Center at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), where she became familiar with machine learning models to optimize local parameters for 3-D printers. She also mentored interns in transfer learning and MATLAB (a programming language) to build a custom image classifier.

Hunt is proficient in technologies such as Docker, AWS, PySpark, Python and Git, and she has already published numerous scientific papers. Her current role involves everything from proposal writing to programming. And, while at Novetta, Hunt placed fifth in an internal coding competition (she was the first woman to break into the Top 10).

“I couldn’t be happier with the broad spectrum of skills I’ve been able to build and the people and projects I’m surrounded by each day,” Hunt said.

Yasi Bahmanabadi is an intern in the Office of Communications & Marketing.