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Antonia Tirri got fast results from the Applied Data Science Lab at WorldQuant University. She completed the free, online certificate program in August 2024 and landed her first data science job two months later in Pisa, Italy.

“I got my present job thanks to WQU,” she says. “The course taught me a lot about data science.”

Antonia already had a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Politecnico di Bari when she enrolled in the 16-week program. She also had a Master of Science in mechanical engineering from Università degli Studi di Salerno. She signed up for the data science program to broaden her expertise.

“I learned more with WQU than I initially did at work,” she says. “WQU gave me the opportunity to completely change fields, moving from mechanical engineering to data science.”

For one applied project, Antonia worked on a team that built financial models and predicted market volatility in India using quantitative data. She also predicted apartment prices in Argentina, earthquake damage in Nepal, and bankruptcy patterns in Poland.

Overall, program participants complete eight self-paced projects and practice skills like data cleaning and data visualization. They also study ethics in machine learning.

Antonia now works as a data scientist at Ion, a London-based software development firm. She says her next educational goal is to complete the Master of Science in Financial Engineering program at WQU.

Already she is giving back to the university by volunteering to serve as an alumni ambassador. Other WQU alumni interested in the alumni ambassador program can apply here.