Rosaria Silipo
Principal Data Scientist at KNIME
Rosaria Silipo, PhD, principal data scientist now at KNIME, has spent 25+ years in applied AI, predictive analytics and machine learning at Siemens, Viseca, Nuance Communications, and private consulting. Sharing her practical experience in a broad range of industries and deployments, including IoT, customer intelligence, financial services, social media, and cybersecurity, Rosaria has authored 50+ technical publications, including her recent books: "Guide to Intelligent Data Science" (Springer) and "Codeless Deep Learning with KNIME" (Packt).
How did you get to become an expert in your key topics?
I worked in the field of data analytics for more than 25 years. I graduated in 1992 with a master in electrical engineering. My thesis was on neural networks already at that time. Alternating with programming jobs, I have always worked as a data scientist, using various tools. I have been an evangelist for KNIME for the past 7 years. That has been the time outside of university where I learned the most in my life.
What topic areas are you most passionate about?
Any data analysis that produces clear and viable results. You do not always need to use deep learning for every little dashboard, classic statistics or machine learning algorithms work as well (and usually faster). For more complex and advanced problems however, deep learning can give you great results. Recently I have had quite some fun in free text generation using LSTM based networks.
Which influencers influence you within those key topics?
Outside of key topics, who else influences you?
My work and my hobbies are all around data science 🙂 But sometimes I admire women leaders, how they manage to get their point across without caring about the blame, the paternalism, the criticisms. Especially in technological fields.
How would you describe your offline influence?
I am a teacher at heart. I am often called to explain how a solution has been assembled, how an algorithm works, or how I can start from somebody else’s work to get inspired for my own. I apply to speak or they call me to speak. I am not super-famous, like others in my field. But my presentations are usually quite successful. Not sure why, but people love them and remember me.
Another field where I shine is when talking to women. I am not sure why, but many of the few women in data science around the world somehow get inspired by what I do.
What’s your best source of information for getting ahead of a story? What resource do you use to stay ahead of the trend?
From time to time, not as often as I would like to, but still I spend one week studying a new topic, together with students at the university.
If a brand wanted to work with you, which activities would you be most interested in collaborating on?
Which non-paid activities would you be keen to take part in if the opportunity raised your profile or delivered value to your audience?
I would be happy to provide a quote for content or news article, share or create a social post or video content, speak at an event, podcast, online chat or a webinar. I am also keen to co-create long form or video content.
What would be the best way for a brand to contact you?