I'm a data scientist at Republic Finance with a background in AI/ML research, which means I've spent time on both sides of the table: publishing and experimenting in research settings, and then applying those methods to real-world financial systems where the stakes are very concrete. My day-to-day involves building and monitoring machine learning models for credit risk, charge-off prediction, delinquency forecasting, and loan portfolio analysis. But I've never fully left the research world. I currently have a paper under peer review on AI-generated content detection, which keeps me at the edge of one of the more contested and fast-moving problems in the field right now. At Virginia Tech, I ran an AI/ML volunteer teaching outfit. I genuinely believe AI/ML is accessible enough for anyone ...