Meet Nathalie Au, Ogury's Sr Data Scientist

Estimated reading time:

3 minutes

This International Women’s Month, Ogury is highlighting some of the women that are contributing to building our amazing team. This installment showcases Nathalie Au, our Senior Data Scientist located in Paris. Get to know Nathalie below.

Describe your role at Ogury and the types of projects your team focuses on?

I currently work as a Senior Data Scientist at Ogury in the Ad Choice team. My role involves transforming data into value using approaches ranging from statistical analysis to machine learning. Programming is part of the job not only for processing data but also for industrializing our algorithms. In Ad Choice, we work on many types of projects. Some are directly related to the delivery: predicting accomplished and impression events, audience modeling, AB testing, etc. The others feed the models used in the delivery: extending IAB+ categorization, predicting age/gender distributions, and much more.

What excites you most about working in tech?

Definitely the challenges. Tech is about problem-solving in innovative ways. As I’ve always enjoyed solving problems, the tech industry is the right choice for me. In my daily work, there is no ready-made solution to each real-world problem and suitable solutions right now can be quickly outdated since AI is developing so fast. This urges us to learn continuously and be creative.

What did you do straight after graduating?

I initially planned to travel before joining the professional world. However, the final year was so overworked that I finally slept 12/13 hours a day for 2 months (I am quite a heavy sleeper).

*Nathalie loves to travel. This is her at the Salinas Grandes in Argentina.*

Who is your modern-day hero and why?

Malala Yousafzai for her fight for girls’ education. I would not define myself as a feminist, but this is a step towards gender equality. At nursery school, I was called a tomboy because I was playing with cars and tools with the other boys in my class. Then, teachers reinforced gender bias: girls get good grades because they work a lot, while boys get good marks because they are smart. The worst I heard was in my career when a manager told me something I will never forget: “a woman cannot think anymore when she becomes a mother”. I was so shocked and this is probably the most stupid thing I ever heard. This goes to show that much more remains to be done…

What is the best piece of advice you have ever been given (professional or personal)?

“Whatever you do, always give 100%”, said my mom quite often when I was younger. I keep following the advice at work but also in my private life. That way, I cannot blame myself for something since I did my best.