Apara Venkat


About me

I am a Data Scientist at Xbox, Microsoft. I graduated with a Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of Washington in 2024. My dissertation, "Problems in Identification and Estimation: Algorithms for Pathogen, Ancestral, and Rashomon Analysis" was co-advised by Tyler McCormick and Ema Perkoviฤ‡.

Before UW, I received my B.S. in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at the University of Colorado at Boulder in May 2020. I completed my undergraduate thesis, advised by Dan Larremore, on identifying effects of node covariates in ranking and choice models.

Non-academically, I am interested in music - both listening and playing. I also like to read. My most recent favorite fiction is The Stormlight Archive series by Brandon Sanderson. My most recent favorite non-fiction is Promised Land by Barack Obama. I enjoy playing a good video game once in a while and my all-time favorites are Uncharted, God of War, and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Having spent four years in Boulder, I also tend to enjoy climbing, biking, and running.

Since my early undergrad days, I have been maintaining a blog where I reflect on science, math, the world, and life. Since my early grad school days, I have been maintaing a website called Normal Almost Nowhere where I dabble in creative writing, mostly consisting of introspective poetry.


My current/past projects (green) and academic interests (blue).


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