Sometimes we forget the humans behind the tech in our ever busy world. DSF is fortunate enough to know some incredible tech leaders across the world and has the privilege of hearing them present at our events. That being said, our Speaker Spotlight sets the stage to get to know our speakers on a more personal level and connect them with our growing community. Read the mini interview below!

A bit about Becky

I’m Becky Grayson, a Data Scientist in the Mars Petcare Global Data & Analytics team. I’ve been in the industry for about 18 months, joining Mars after completing a Masters in Physics from the University of Manchester. Since then, I’ve worked on projects involving time series forecasting and deep learning techniques and was a member of the winning team in the Mars coral reef restoration hackathon.

Outside of work I’m often escaping London on surf trips or attempting new baking recipes!

How did you start out in your tech career?

I studied physics at university which, without realising at the time, gave me a lot of skills that transfer well to data science. It provided me with the basics of coding and statistics and through my master’s project I gained experience working with large datasets from the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. After I graduated, I found the data science industry through an online course I completed and haven’t looked back! I was then initially hired as a graduate data scientist at Mars 18 months ago.

What are the signs of success in your field?

Data science is ultimately about extracting insights from data, but I think success in this field is about more than just finding the insights or building the model itself. There is a level of creativity, openness and knowledge of your business that is required to make these insights meaningful, as well as developing positive relations with stakeholders and decision makers in order to create action off the back of them. It’s this great mix of technical, people and business skills that I think really makes a great data scientist stand out.

What is the best and worst thing about your job role?

I think the best thing for me would be the constant learning. In an everchanging industry there’s always something new to learn and it keeps the work interesting and challenging. The variety of data and projects my team work on also contributes to this and means there’s always lots of interesting things happening.

I guess the most testing part of the role would probably be when faced with messy or inadequate data, this can sometimes cause roadblocks in a project that can be frustrating to get past.

What can you advise someone just starting out to be successful?

I think I would say try to enjoy how much there is to learn and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Get involved with any opportunities you come across and know when to lean on the people around you for advice and knowledge.

Tech can definitely feel an intimidating industry to break into, but I’ve found curiosity and a bit of confidence can take you a long way.

How do you switch off?

I really love surfing and try to go on trips as often as I can although living in London can make that difficult! Day to day, anything active is usually how I switch off; the gym, swimming or running are my go to’s.

What advice would you give your younger self?

I don’t think I would want to say too much, just to keep going and trust I’m on the right path!

What is next for you?

I’m not really sure what is next for me, I’m really enjoying my current role at the moment and am focused on further developing my experience and knowledge. For now, I’m happy to just see where that takes me!

If you could do anything now, what would you do? Why?

I’d love to gain more experience with image data. I did some work with images on a project last year and found the concepts super interesting and fun to learn about. Outside of work I’d like to see more of the world.

What are your top 5 predictions in tech for the next 5 years?

    • I can only see AI and particularly LLMs continuing to grow, both in breadth of use cases and the power of the technologies themselves.
    • I also think the accessibility of them will grow allowing them to be widely used by everyone, not just those of technical backgrounds.
    • I think security, privacy, and ethics of AI will and should continue to be an ongoing topic.
    • I imagine we’ll see new job roles in the industry pop up as the technologies and specific needs develop. This is already being seen with the likes of prompt engineers.
    • Lastly not necessarily a prediction, but one specific area I’m excited to see evolve is medical applications of AI and tech advances, such as within drug discovery. I think there could be big developments there in the next few years.

Watch Becky’s session at the Data Science Festival here.

Thank you to all our wonderful speakers for taking part in our Speaker Spotlight!

Want to become a DSF Speaker? Apply here!