Apara Venkat

About me

I am a fourth year Ph.D. student in the Statistics Department at the University of Washington. I am co-advised by Tyler McCormick and Ema Perković. Before UW, I completed my B.S. in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at the University of Colorado at Boulder in May 2020. I have also interned at Microsoft as a data scientist and as a software engineer. At Microsoft, I worked on Xbox, Mixed Reality, and Microsoft Edge.

Research interests

Broadly, I am interested in two things: causal inference and statistical methods with applications in social science. Sometimes the two interests coincide, but often not. I also find other areas such as network science, choice models, and semiparametric methods interesting but don't work with them on a daily basis. Currently, I am working on:

• Causal discovery with expert knowledge (+ Ema).
• Enumerating Rashomon models to robustly estimate heterogeneity (+ Tyler + Arun Chandrasekhar).

At CU, I worked with Dan Larremore on developing methods and software to automatically parse curricula vitae. Later, I completed my undergraduate thesis, advised by Dan, on identifying effects of node covariates in ranking and choice models.

Outside school

Non-academically, I am interested in music - both listening and playing. I also like to read. My most recent favorite fiction is The Stormlight Archive series by Brandon Sanderson. My most recent favorite non-fiction is Promised Land by Barack Obama. I enjoy playing a good video game once in a while and my all-time favorites are Uncharted, God of War, and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Having spent four years in Boulder, I also tend to enjoy climbing, biking, and running.

Since my early undergrad days, I have been maintaining a blog where I reflect on science, math, the world, and life.