Dr. Pooja Khosla, Director of Data Science at Entelligent

Dr. Pooja Khosla is an extraordinarily inspiring woman. She is an excellent Senior Data Scientist, a top-rated instructor, and an amazingly caring mother.  Read more about this marvelous woman here.

Tell us a little bit about yourself?

My name is Dr. Pooja Khosla, I split my time between teaching and working for a startup called Entelligent. I am a Senior Data Scientist and Modeler at Entelligent, which integrates climate change data to compute climate change risk at the portfolio level. I also teach data science, and economics at the University of Colorado. When I’m not teaching or working, I love spending time with my family. I have two kids, a 4 year-old and a 6 year-old, we all love to hike and to do Karate together as a family!

I want to play a key role in my company where I can help us direct corporate money into companies that are really working towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions, reducing their impact on the environment, and generally looking to create a better world. 

When and Why did you decide to become a Data Scientist?

Initially, I started my career in India as a business school professor where I taught and consulted with my students on Microfinance projects. This experience quickly grew to a passion for projects which incorporated ALL stakeholders. This clear vision and understanding of who is a stakeholder and what impact could a particular project have on them, impacted my modelling and gave me the impetus to learn more. Given that I’ve been doing this for quite some time, I actually started coding my econometrics models in excel, I then moved on to spss, Python, R, Scala, you name it, I learned all of those programs and tools on the job. 

While tools are important, it is the thought process behind the model that matters most. Therefore, I became fascinated by how the system works, and how the stakes could be distributed in multiple and even more equitable ways. I really loved solving problems and finding good solutions where everyone could benefit and we could imagine and create the maximum welfare solution in the world.

Throughout my 10 years of teaching experience, I would often inspire and encourage my students to think differently and present creative solutions to the world. Additionally, I always had a hunger to learn more and have a greater impact, which is why I ended up gaining 3 Masters degrees and a PhD.

My first master was in Econometrics, because I thought that if I told people the impact of the numbers, then that would make sense and encourage people to be more proactive. However, I quickly realized that I have really good math skills, I always joked that I speak Math better than English. In turn, this encouraged me to get another master in communications, where I can learn to write more impactfully and present my understanding of the numbers in more readily legible ways, all while improving my data knowledge.

Then I got engaged to my now husband, who lived in Boulder at the time, and that was where I applied for a PhD and was accepted to The University of Colorado Boulder with full funding. I was a little concerned about starting another academic program because I wanted to finance it myself, but the program was very generous and helped me greatly. As an integrated program, which provided both a masters and a PhD, I studied and finished as a Doctor of Philosophy in Economics.

After 10 years of teaching and the completion of my PhD studies, I didn’t want to leave because I truly loved the area and the nature that surrounded me every day. This was one of the most important factors in deciding to stay and actually became one of the reasons for why I entered this field. At the time, I got in touch with a Nobel Laureate and a burgeoning entrepreneur who engaged me on their team and brought me on as Director of Data Science!

I always had a hunger to learn more and have a greater impact, which is why I ended up gaining 3 Masters degrees and a PhD.

What was you most fulfilling or fun project? What did you learn about yourself?

I’m all about women’s empowerment and I like women in higher and more powerful positions. But I also had the chance to see the exact opposite of that. I worked with women in rural areas of India whose lives were so miserable, they had no money to eat or send their kids to schools. I was exposed to this level of sever poverty when I was consulting for an NGO. While working there, I quickly realized that people do not want to give their money for free, that we must provide them with an incentive to give some of their money for the benefit of those women and children.

During our time with these rural Indian women, we learned that they were excellent artisans and can create beautiful handiwork, so our team designed a business model, where people can invest their money and get a return on their investment, while providing those women with a decent living wage. Here’s how it worked, people would invest their money, which would be used to purchase and provide the raw materials, then the women would be paid for their labor that would go into producing beautiful crafts to be sold in Europe and America, after which the sales revenues would constitute a return on investment for our investors.

What we effectively did was start a cottage industry, which worked really well and resulted in our model being replicated across many regions in the country,

What was the greatest bit of professional advice that you received? And what do others say is the greatest advice you’ve given?

I am blessed that I can do both, the academic world and the corporate world, but most of the world sees those as not fitting together in a big picture. In academics, I learned how to solve lots of problems, how to create real knowledge, how to do case studies and how to reach new markets and new heights of innovation, all important and transferable skills in the corporate world. I also learned how to present well, which is a topic in an of itself. If I can present to a college student, then I surely can present to a CEO, easily!

The greatest advice that I received was from David Schimel, a Nobel Laureate, who said to me: “Pooja, you should know when to stop.” He’s right, I can always work until I am 110% happy, but we all know that never happens. The world only wants a signal of a solution, not a perfect solution, and this encouraged me to know when to stop. I’ve also noticed this in the corporate world which moves much faster than the academic world. In the corporate world, once the product is out, you have the power to edit, issues adjustments and do as you please, but your product has to be out there first! This should resonate well with many data scientists who are now more engaged in the corporate world than the academic world. Many data scientists have to know when to stop, put your product out there, the version control will always be there for you to check and recheck. While I know It’s hard, I think that that’s where group work comes into play. In a group situation, you can institute a midterm evaluation, where you all can collectively work on certain important tasks and share the burden of knowing when to stop.

The world only wants a signal of a solution, not a perfect solution.

Do you find that women are often a minority in the industry? If so, what actionable steps would you recommend to actively combat this issue?

Given that I am in two industries, I can speak to both. In academics, women are present and relatively well represented. Many amazing women professors and instructors are teaching phenomenal classes and putting out awesome publications! But in the corporate world, sadly, you don’t see that many women statisticians or data scientists.

I was recently listening to a podcast which postulated that men apply to jobs where they think they have at least 50% of the requirements, but women only apply when they feel that they fit the position’s requirements almost 100%. This is ridiculous! Women, you are ready for those jobs. You can acquire great mentors and learn anything new on the job. All you have to do is apply and learn. I also always refer women to any position that I see. Women just have to know that people want to hire them, companies want to increase women’s representation at their offices, just apply!

Additionally, I learned that women have acquired fewer negotiation skills that men, I am trying to be better at that and I think every woman should be better at negotiations too. Years ago, I actually did a study (read here) where I looked at women with PhDs, and I found that PhD mothers were paid less than PhD women without children. This was not necessarily because there was discrimination, but mainly because of the choices those women were making.

In fact, I want the world to know that I was productive and reproductive during my PhD! As a woman I think that it was the perfect time for me to conceive, it was difficult at times when I had to hold my child while pouring over books and writing papers. However, given that my teaching schedule was flexible, I felt that made the right choice and that I spent more time with them in that critical age. And now that my children are a little older and that I am in the midst of my career, I feel more empowered and encouraged to make the right choices for me and my family. When I am not teaching or at work, I make sure that my phone is off so that I am engaged with my family 100%.

Women just have to know that people want to hire them, companies want to increase women’s representation at their offices, just apply!

What would you like people to learn?

I want people to learn to look for solutions outside the box. Although sometimes, we think outside the box and make the appropriate assumptions, our solutions may not always work. Nevertheless, this should not be discouraging to us, this should light a fire to inspire us to look for more and better solutions.

I also think that my fellow educators should be more understanding of the impact of teaching young college freshmen and sophomores and especially the young women in those classes, particularly in the STEM fields. When I was teaching, I sought to teach them as much as I can, yet to my dismay, not many people wanted to teach introductory courses to college freshmen. Exciting them at the beginning of their academic journey and while in their young careers in unparalleled. I noticed that when It comes to women’s representation in STEM courses, there is an inverse relationship. The more you go up in level, the less women are around. I remember distinctly being only one of 3-4 women in a class of 25 people in my Economics PhD courses.

What are you excited about in your professional future and where do you see yourself going?

I want to play a key role in my company where I can help us direct corporate money into companies that are really working towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions, reducing their impact on the environment, and generally looking to create a better world. This will hopefully accelerate the move toward impact investing, where people can make money doing good. I am and will continue to be one the researchers working on this impactful venture. Although governments may have different views, people who believe in the alarming effects of climate change can certainly work to curb it through corporate solutions and impact investing. I believe Adam Smith; the invisible hand does work.

I’m all about women’s empowerment and I like women in higher and more powerful positions. 

Do you have any advice for young women excited to enter the field?

You can do it, absolutely! I you think that you are even 60% ready for the job, apply. You should know that you are valuable, and that you will know that the more you meet people. You have to have strong networking skills, and must understand the value of being present at events, conferences and gatherings of potential professional contacts. Just be present and alert, things will happen. Also, just make sure to help others in the exact same way that you were helped.