TEAM
Glenn Fung
Data Science & Emerging Tech AVP​
Glenn received a B.S. in mathematics from Universidad Lisandro Alvarado in Venezuela. He then earned an M.S. in applied mathematics from Universidad Simon Bolivar, Venezuela, where later he worked as an assistant professor. He also earned an M.S. degree and a Ph. D. degree in computer sciences and statistics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2003. His main interests are optimization approaches to machine learning and AI, with emphasis in kernel methods. For twelve years he has worked in industry (Siemens, Amazon, American family insurance) developing and applying novel machine learning techniques to solve challenging industry-related problems. He is an author of 100+ scientific publications and 30+ patents. Outside of work, he attempts to make fun music while playing the bass and enjoys collecting and playing trading card games.
Joe Bockhorst
Senior Data Scientist
Joe has over 15 years of experience extending and applying machine learning methods to important problems in industry and society. He has a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Computer Sciences (2005) and did postdoc work in the Machine Learning and Applied Statistics group at Microsoft Research. Specific interests at the moment are natural language understanding and probabilistic representations of uncertainty for rational decision making (by humans or AI systems). Outside of work he enjoys spending time with his two children, partner and two cats, golfing (poorly), and playing cards, especially Sheepshead.
Devin Conathan
Data Scientist​
Devin joined the machine learning research team at American Family Insurance as an intern in the summer of 2016 and came on full-time the following year. He has undergraduate degrees in mathematics and philosophy from Cornell University and a masters in electrical engineering with a focus on optimization and active learning research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For work he enjoys developing full-stack solutions that use state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms for industry-quality applications and research. His most recent work includes RoCKET, a crowd-sourcing, active-learning framework for training text classification models, and the design and implementation of convolutional neural network text classifiers and a graph-based conversation service for Abby, American Family's chatbot solution. In his free time, he enjoys riding his bike, playing music, and reading sci-fi novels.
Maleeha Qazi
Data Scientist​
Maleeha received a B.A. in mathematics from the University of Virginia and an M.S. in computer science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. For 10 years she worked at Siemens Medical Solutions in Malvern, PA doing research in the medical domain & helping build analytics into their EHR system. She has been a Data Scientist at American Family Insurance for the past 4 years. Her research interests include Statistical Relational Learning, Bayesian Networks, bioinformatics, and the application of machine learning techniques to the medical domain. Her personal interests include reading, traveling, dancing, crafts, cooking, and finding the best trees between which to string her hammock.
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LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maleehaqazi
Eric Bunch
Data Scientist​
Eric joined AmFam's Machine Learning research group in 2018, and is interested in natural language processing, deep learning, and topological data analysis. Before joining AmFam, he worked at a FinTech startup and focused on customer targeting and segmentation. Having earned a Phd in mathematics, Eric is always excited to learn about novel techniques in machine learning that utilize traditionally more abstract mathematics. Outside of work, Eric enjoys spending time with his wife and son, playing the guitar, reading, and cooking.
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Daniel Dickinson
Data Scientist​ Manager
Dan received a B.A. in Mathematics from the University of Chicago and an M.S. in Mathematics from the University of Oregon. He joined American Family in 2013, where he has worked on retention, customer lifetime value, and storm loss models. Specific interests include topological data analysis, non-IID learning, as well as spreading the joy of Python. Before joining American Family, he worked at Aon where he provided catastrophe modeling and consulting services. Outside of work Dan enjoys traveling and spending time outdoors.
Alisha Zachariah
Data Science Manager
Alisha received a BA Hons. in Mathematics from St. Stephen’s college, New Delhi, a Master’s in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Oxford, and a PhD in Applied Math from the University of Wisconsin. During her PhD she interned at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and, later on, with the machine learning research team at American Family Insurance, joining the team full time in Fall 2020. At work, Alisha enjoys discovering/rediscovering the ways that mathematical language serves machine learning innovation. Outside of work she enjoys cooking and good food, walking/hiking trails, live performances and tending to her plants.
Jeffrey Gilcrease
Data Science Research Coordinator
Jeff received a degree in Risk Management and Insurance from the University of Georgia and holds the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter designation. He has over thirty years of experience in the insurance and transportation industries and for the last fifteen years has worked with customers to define and implement ML-based solutions to improve safety, achieve operational improvements and preserve assets.
Shailesh Acharya
Data Scientist​
Shailesh Acharya has a Master’s Degree in computer Science from University of North Texas. His research interest includes Natural Language Processing and Computer vision. He has worked for more than 4 years in the field of machine learning. Shailesh joined American Family Insurance as a machine learning intern in the summer of 2017 and came back as a Data Scientist the following year. Outside of work he loves to go out with his friends and travel to new places.
![Jeff[1] copy cropped (1).jpg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/da502e_54e89d075063451c99e0f6d54ea74732~mv2.jpg/v1/crop/x_0,y_50,w_481,h_480/fill/w_70,h_70,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,blur_2,enc_auto/Jeff%5B1%5D%20copy%20cropped%20(1).jpg)
Jeffery Kline
Data Scientist​
Jeff has extensive experience in feature detection, noise removal, convex optimization, and anomaly detection. He earned his PhD in Mathematics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2010. After graduating, Jeff worked as a postdoc for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. In 2013, Jeff joined a Madison-based startup aimed at detecting fraud in online publishing and advertising, and he continued to work in that industry until fall 2019, when he joined American Family Insurance. Jeff has published on many topics including linear algebra, discrete optimization, Internet measurement, and he is co-author on several patents. Jeff and his wife enjoy skiing with their two children and very large puppy.
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Ender Tekin
Data Scientist​
Ender received a B.S. degree in Electrical-Electronics Engineering from BoÄŸaziçi University in Ä°stanbul, Turkey, followed by M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University, where he worked on information theory and its applications to digital communications. After his doctorate degree, he joined the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco, CA and started working on developing novel assistive technology tools using computer vision and machine learning for individuals with vision loss. He continued this work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in an Associate Scientist role prior to joining AmFam. His main interests are in computer vision and multimodal machine learning. He is always trying to find the best machine learning tools to tackle the problems that come his way. Outside of work, Ender likes playing soccer and taking himself and his bike off the paved paths.
Ananth GV
Data Scientist​
Ananth holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering and a Graduate Degree in Applied Data Science from Syracuse University (New York). He interned at American Family Insurance under Glenn Fung last summer. Ananth worked at JPMorgan Chase as a Data Engineer for 2 years in the Liquidity Risk Line of Business. Ananth is an active biker and likes to travel. He is a PADI certified scuba diver and his hobbies include scuba diving, drone video creation, sketching and reading about astronomical inventions and discoveries.
Keith Westpfahl
Data Scientist/Labeler​
Keith graduated with a Master’s degree in Biomedical Data Science from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. He started his career as a Bioenvironmental Engineer in the US Air Force where he focused on hazard exposure data analysis. After getting accepted to UW-Madison, he wanted to focus on Machine Learning and started working as a Data Science Intern for American Family Insurance in June 2019. Keith really enjoyed his time with American Family and was hired on as a Data Labeler in May 2020. He is very passionate about machine learning algorithms and finding new ways machine learning can be applied to everyday problems. Outside of work he loves to spend time with his two dogs, play ice hockey, and recently started a website he plans to develop into hosting Machine Learning resources.
Vikas Singh
Associated Researcher, Professor at UW Madison
Vikas leads the image analysis service of the ADRC imaging core. He is an Associate Professor in the Biostatistics & Med. Informatics and Computer Sciences departments at University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received a Ph.D in 2007 in Computer Science at State University of New York at Buffalo. His research is in biomedical image analysis, computer vision, and some aspects of machine learning. In particular, he is interested in problems motivated from image data with a distinct optimization and/or geometric flavor.