anusha natarajan
Business & data consultant
Anusha Natarajan is from Arizona but now attends graduate school at Columbia University in New York city. Previously, she majored in sociology and quant science at Arizona State University. Anusha and Milla met during their college years and have a flourishing friendship ever since. During the covid-19 pandemic, Anusha founded the organization, Culture Talk which brought 38+ students around the world together virtually. Anusha and Milla ran the organization together and created content such as a magazine, a podcast, a blog, social media, and more in order to bring light to real-world issues and global politics.
Over time, Anusha became fascinated in the field of data science and decided to pursue her master’s degree. She is passionate in trying to mesh the social and data science fields together as historically, the field tends to be inundated with qualitative data. She sees a space for herself to try to make more sense of the data and trends that we have been seeing within a social science context.
For her, some of her best strengths include being able to understand and take in a variety of perspectives. Especially being in the field of data science, things change at a fast pace and affect a lot of areas in our day to day lives. It is important to take in those perspectives and also put in time to listen to what people have to say. She also thinks that commitment and dedication are important as well, and holds these values dearly while working on different assignments and projects. All of which require effort and hard work. Also, a big thing that she tries to strive for is having a work-life balance. One of her mantras is: “It is important to take care of yourselves first because without that, you won’t have the time and energy to stay committed to your work, goals, and values.”
She also loves writing and researching. She was able to work as a reporter and editor for her student run newspaper at ASU, and was able to carry some of those skills over when she was studying abroad at Carleton University in Canada. There, she continued to work as a national news reporter. With her interest in data and social sciences, her time at the Pew Research Center was insightful, especially getting hands-on experience on working on trying to make the data and numbers sense to the general public. From data collection to report writing, she was able to learn the process of communicating to the public, how to promote trust, and boost credibility to global audiences by taking the data-driven approach in telling a story on what a statistic or quote means.
In terms of favorite films, she would have to say that Greta Gerwig is one of her favorite directors. She really enjoyed Lady Bird and how the story was developed. Other films by Greta Gerwig include Little Women, Barbie, and Nights and Weekends. The coming of age genre is her favorite, and seeing Greta Gerwig making strides in the filmmaking space as a woman and female film director is really great to see. Anusha is excited for her other upcoming projects as well.
Anusha wants to thank Milla Nguyen for giving her the amazing space to share her voice as someone who is not a filmmaker but is interested in how data affects the entertainment industry and social culture that comes with the industry. She thinks it is important to talk about how technology has been shaping other industries, especially in the creative world. With the rise in AI, it is important to talk to people, understand their concerns, and how we can create a space where people can continue harnessing their creative energy while navigating the ever changing dynamics of AI. Another area she is super interested in is delving into looking at how algorithms try to personalize and cater to our media interests. AI tools and customization in design is now being implemented at the world’s biggest brands, streaming platforms, and film-television-media studios.
Anusha definitely was not expecting to be working with computers at this moment in her career. She was actually hoping not to be in a technology related job, but here we are. She did want to become an educator initially, and is still doing some work on that by working as a part time instructor at Princeton Review, tutoring in math and statistics. In a way, she did follow what she wanted to do as a kid, but also at the same time, she’s always looking forward to incorporating teaching aspects in her work and career ahead!