From Amritsar to Austin! – Intelligent Analytics and Modeling Newest Team Member Arjit Sakhuja

We are thrilled to announce the addition of Arjit Sakhuja to our team. After working remotely for several months, we convinced Arjit to move from Arlington to Austin to join Intelligent Analytics and Modeling (IA&M) as our in-house Data Scientist. We have already put his invaluable education and expertise to good use in several of our projects.

Arjit has taken the lead in building our Machine Learning based Natural Language Processing model for our Small Business Administration research grant, and is helping develop social media analytical tools that we offer to our clients in a variety of industries.

We sat down with Arjit for an interview to better get to know him, and to welcome him to our company. This interview is part of our longer series “Get to Know who IA&M”.

Where are you from?

I was born in Amritsar, Punjab, in the Northern region of India.

What made you want to pursue your Masters degree in Business Analytics at University of Texas at Arlington?

It gave me an opportunity to learn about core business concepts along with cutting edge statistical and machine learning techniques.

What was your first impression of the United States?

I had a very positive impression of the United States. Prior to coming, I was told many positive things about the US: that there are lots of opportunities, people are very progressive, everything is organized and clean and most importantly if you are capable, smart and willing to work hard then it is easier to make it big in the US than in any other country in the world. After two years, I think what I was told was right.

What would you say your forte is? How do you think you can apply it to your work at Intelligent Analytics and Modeling?

I have a very good understanding of Natural Language Processing and statistics. Also, I consider myself a critical thinker and problem solver which are essential to the kinds of tasks I am performing at IA&M.

What is your favorite coding language?

Python is my favorite coding language because it has many great, easy to use libraries that I regularly use to perform data analysis and machine learning.

Could you elaborate on your contribution to the SBA Project?

Part of our SBA study on the effects of occupational licensing on small businesses entails a classification of google reviews according to their content. I built the machine learning model to create a text classifier. Our classifier can detect if a review is “technical” based or “customer service” based. The process to build this classifier involved building a lexicon of technical and customer service based words and then training it by using manually classified data.

What do you like doing in your free time that doesn’t require the use of a computer?

Cooking, yoga and I would like to read more than what I am currently reading 🙂

What do you miss from your hometown the most?

The usual: food, family and friends but not necessarily in that order.

What’s your favorite food that you miss? What’s your favorite food here in Texas?

The food that I miss the most is naan bread stuffed with potatoes along with the curry of chickpeas. I would consider authentic tacos as my favourite food in Texas.

What do you think of Austin so far?

It’s such a welcoming city! It’s a great place to connect and have fun. I love that people here are very laid back, and conscious about being healthy and active.

If you can ask our readers one question about Austin, what would it be?

Before moving to Austin I lived in DFW area for two years. Within my first month in Austin I can feel a large difference between the ethos of these two places. I would like to ask, despite being geographically close how did Austin become so different from Dallas?