People / Students / Class of 2024
Yi (Grace) Xie graduated from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in May 2023 with double majors in Actuarial Science and Statistics (High Distinction) as well as a minor in Business. Grace's academic background has provided her with a solid foundation in theoretical analysis models and extensive applications in machine learning, fueling her desire to pursue a career in data science. During her undergraduate studies, Grace actively engaged in diverse programming projects, research papers, presentations, and website development in the fields of crop science, animal science, public health, business management, and psychology. Through these experiences, she has developed exceptional programming skills, particularly in R and Python, and also possesses proficiency in JAVA, SAS, VBA, Tableau, and SQL. In her summer 2021 asset management internship in Yadi (a joint venture company by rideshare company Didi and electric car company BYD), Grace was able to utilize her communication skills and insurance knowledge to automate the updating of car insurance information and invoices across different departments and cities. Additionally, Grace conducted data cleaning, analysis, and visualization of financial data on a weekly basis while reconciling daily insurance purchases with the accounting department. From March 2022 till August 2023, Grace worked as an undergraduate research assistant in UIUC RailTEC Safety Group. She helped generate and modify auto regular Tank Car Accidents Reports and consolidate multiple documents into combined hazmat tank car tables using VBA and Python. Grace also employed her expertise in constructing logistic regressions in R to compare full and reduced accidents datasets based on different categories such as train speed, jacket number to control the possibility of release. Following the 2023 Ohio E. Palestine accident, she automated the process of comparing retrofitting tank cars from monthly recorded databases by different time frames in Python to prevent similar incidents from occurring again. For the annual rail hazmat report, Grace automated eight exhibits in traffic part and contributed to other analytical discussions as well. Driven by her passion for data analysis, Grace is honored to be a part of the MLDS team at Northwestern University. She particularly looks forward to contributing her ideas and expanding her knowledge in business and programming methods through engaging with classmates, faculty members, and industry professionals! Beyond her academic pursuits, Grace enjoys playing badminton, volleyball, and tennis. She also loves to devote her time to helping shelters for stray cats and dogs.
