Hema Seshadri, Senior Data Scientist- Compute & Networks Advanced Analytics, Akamai Technologies
Hema Seshadri started her scientific training at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology and Indian Institute of Science, India, and moved to the United States to pursue a doctorate in organic chemistry and fulfill her dream of working in drug discovery. She was a senior scientist in the research and development wings of two successful biotech startups in the Boston area. She is the co-inventor of a patented cancer drug, Rezurock, licensed and marketed by Sanofi.
Pursuing her passion for advanced analytics, she completed a master’s degree in computer science and pivoted to the tech industry. She started her engineering career in storage engineering, as a senior software engineer at EMC in Hopkinton, Massachusetts (MA), where she designed and developed the first advanced analytics feature in CloudIQ, a cloud analytics software as a service (SaaS) storage management software product solution. Currently, she is a senior data scientist at Akamai Technologies in Cambridge, MA, where she develops predictive and prescriptive analytics solutions for global compute & network planning, compute & network optimization, customer intelligence, data center planning. She has extensive experience delivering research-based, data-driven solutions that move organizations forward. She works as an internal analytics consultant and architect on organizational analytics and business digital transformation projects and data and analytics strategy initiatives, including data fabric, data quality, and management projects. She is passionate about bringing software engineering vigor to data science practice areas. She is also involved in teaching foundational competencies related to data and analytics that allow practitioners to analyze complex problems critically. As an adjunct analytics professor at Bentley University (Waltham, MA) and Northeastern University (Boston. MA), she exposes students to the breadth, depth, versatility, and usefulness of analytics, data, software architecture and databases in problem-solving.
She mentors students and volunteers in local science fairs and programs such as the Akamai STEM Foundation, Girls Who Code, MIT Innovation Challenge, and MIT CodeIT, to encourage middle and high schoolers to pursue STEM careers. Over her career, she has authored multiple research publications and patents. She recently published a book; Analytics for Business Success : A Guide to Analytics Fitness TM that is available globally via major book retailers. She attributes her success to the cultural, adaptive, and technical challenges and experiences she had to overcome and learn from in her career
