Funda is an experienced software developer/advocator, data science consultant, researcher, and mentor. In 2020, she joined Duke University as a faculty member and the Director of the Master’s Program in Statistical Science after ten years of tenor at SAS Institute, where her last role was Principal Research Statistician. She holds a Ph.D. in Statistics from North Carolina State University. As a research statistician and machine learning developer, Funda’s expertise is in building machine learning pipelines for performing end-to-end analytics, including data preprocessing, feature engineering, model training/development, model assessment/validation, ensemble modeling, automated machine learning, and interpretable machine learning. As a consultant, she focuses on analyzing electronic health care data by employing traditional statistical and machine learning techniques. Funda is passionate about mentoring and advising students and supporting women in the data science community.

Dr. Kelci Miclaus is Senior Director of Veeva Stats where she leads product, strategy and engineering for the Veeva Systems statistical computing environment solutions for regulatory clinical analysis and reporting. Previously, she helped create, develop, and manage the JMP Genomics and JMP Clinical software solutions as Advanced Analytics Sr. Manager for the JMP Life Sciences division at SAS Institute. She holds a PhD in Statistics with biomedical and genomic concentrations from North Carolina State University. Kelci is a recognized thought-leader and subject matter expert around the role of software, data platforms, and analytics/visualization in advancing and operationalizing discoveries with genomic, translational, and clinical data lifecycles in the life sciences domain.

Kelsey is a data scientist at Labcorp Drug Development who develops data science approaches and methodologies to address drug development challenges using artificial intelligence and machine learning. She has a BA in Psychology from Princeton University and an MA/PhD in Psychology & Neuroscience from Duke University. Her research background and expertise is in cognitive neuroscience and applying computational models to both behavioral and neural data to leverage insights into how humans learn and make decisions. Her PhD research centered on using Bayesian nonparametric models and reinforcement learning to study human strategic decision-making in complex contexts. When not analyzing data, Kelsey loves to play with her husky, Khaleesi and practice yoga.