I have always had a passion for mathematics and had a lot of support throughout my education. My interest in technology came from my choice of logic and computing modules during my undergraduate degree. I went on to study a master’s degree in ‘The Mathematics of Cryptography and Communications’ and I had part of my dissertation, ‘A note on an upper bound of traceability codes’, which presented a new proof and previously unseen examples, published.
Despite not pursuing a career in cryptography, I feel lucky to have found a field where I can use the same skills – such as logical and mathematical reasoning, programming, problem solving and creativity – every day.
I joined O2 on the graduate scheme in 2014, which combined leadership and management training with a full time permanent role within the data science team. I learnt all of my coding and analytical skills on the job from my extremely knowledgeable colleagues, who were always happy to help.
After 18 months I took an opportunity as an insight analyst at British Airways. The team that I joined had just started the move into data science at that time, and so I took on the role of a data science advocate, joining a steering group which consulted on the tools and technology we should be using as well as providing use cases and best practice examples.
At the end of 2017 I took a senior role in the Data Science team back at O2, which is the role I am currently in.